Everybody Knows
by portioncontrol
Summary: When he finds out Annie won't be returning to Greendale after all, Jeff takes dramatic steps to move on (it doesn't work). Set post-finale.
1. You Know How He Can Be

She wasn't coming back at the end of the summer.

Or, she was, but only for a weekend to settle things up, then it was back to the FBI.

He tried to feign surprise at this — an internship of the sort she'd had leading to an offer of full-time employment was an extremely rare beast — but some part of him said _of course_.

Of course she would excel.

Of course she would impress.

Of course she would, once finally full out of the cocoon that was Greendale, burst forth to conquer the world.

He would have been disappointed if she'd come back.

He would have been relieved, of course. Hell, he would have been thrilled, and odds were that he wouldn't have done a very good job of hiding it. Britta referred to the night Annie had made the announcement as the night he'd had a nervous breakdown, right there in front of everyone. But he would have been disappointed, too, because he expected better of her. And while he'd let her down more than once, she'd never done the same to him.

His circle of friends had pared down by the time he got the news she wouldn't be coming back: Duncan, Britta, Craig, and Frankie. She was all giddy when she told him, like it was good news. Because, of course, it was.

After he got off the phone with her he looked at himself in the mirror, and he didn't like what he saw. This was nothing new, on one level. He'd never been especially fond of himself. After a flirtation with being a professional monster, he'd settled into the role of sad sack and failure with an energy and vigor usually associated with success. He had a job he hated at a school synonymous with disappointment. He'd missed whatever shot he'd had with the woman he loved by being too far up his own ass to act, and telling himself it was noble. He'd failed at nearly everything he'd ever tried – at least, the things that had been important to him.

This is what he was thinking, when he looked at himself in the mirror the day after the news. She wasn't coming back. She was gone. He had failed at everything, up to and including ruining her life.

And in that thought he found solace. No matter what he did now, no act of his could change the fact that he'd known someone remarkable, and that she was going to be remarkable out there in the world, and even that he had, in some tiny way, been responsible for her becoming the remarkable woman she was.

Nothing he did mattered any more; she was gone.

He was free.

* * *

"…Dean dean dean went the trolley, dean dean dean went the bell…" Craig Pelton sang to himself as he filled out yet another form. At times he suspected Frankie just made up paperwork to keep him busy, because when he was filling out forms he wasn't getting in her way while she ran Greendale. But most of the forms seemed legit. The one he was filling out at that moment, for instance: a copy of the city's new twenty-part submission packet for getting permission to designate some of the parking spots in the main lot as being for the handicapped, which Frankie had dropped off that morning. The sudden uptick in elaborate documentation required by even the most banal of administrative tasks had corresponded with the start of Frankie Dart's tenure as Greendale Community College's chief operations manager, which Craig thought of as an exceptionally fortunate coincidence. Without her, he doubted he could have kept up with all of the new paperwork; even with her, it kept him busy almost all day, almost every day.

He was filling out page eight of the packet Frankie had given him for the day: listing the colors of the rainbow in order of preference. The exercise that had taken most of the morning, as he kept changing his mind as to whether orange was his fifth-favorite color, or whether it was his sixth-favorite under indigo.

Craig glanced up as Jeff Winger strode into his office, then dropped his pencil as he did a double take. Jeff had gotten a shave and a haircut. He wore a crisp blue button-down shirt, and there was a spark in his eye that Craig hadn't seen since before he'd turned forty.

"Jeffrey!" Craig cried. He started to spring up out of his chair, ready to join Jeff in whatever strange crusade he was launching, but something in Jeff's pose kept him in his seat. "What can I do for you?"

"I quit," Jeff said.

"What?" Craig was aghast. "Jeffrey, why? Do you want more money? I can't give you more money! There isn't any, and even if there was, Frankie took away the checkbook!"

Jeff snorted. "I… no, you deserve to know. You've been a good friend. Annie's not coming back. They offered her a job at the FBI."

Craig boggled. "Are you going to follow her to Washington, DC? That's insane and romantic and I'm so jealous!"

"Hell, no." Jeff shook his head. "I'll probably never see her again, just like Troy and Shirley and Abed and everyone else who leaves. But knowing she's gone forever is a wake-up call. I've been here, wallowing, in this place where aspirations go to die, eking out tiny, tiny slivers of satisfaction. I'm tired of drinking to numb myself enough to get to the point where I'm able to pretend I'm okay with my life. I quit."

Craig blinked back tears. He searched his brain for reasons Jeff couldn't do this. "But… but… the fall semester starts next week! Someone needs to teach your classes, you can't just —"

"Please." Jeff scowled, the wicked gleam still in his eye. "A monkey could teach my classes. It's all DVDs and multiple choice. Get one of the cafeteria workers to do it. Or Frankie can probably find a better-qualified law professor who actually wants to be here, maybe because of a stroke or an anxiety disorder. My point is I don't care."

"But you love Greendale!" Craig cried desperately.

"Again, hell no. I love some people who are mostly gone now, and I should follow their example. Greendale is a crutch, and if I'm ever going to regain my self-respect, step one is getting rid of the crutch."

"What… what are you going to do?" The dean whimpered like kicked puppy.

Jeff's eyes lit up even more. "I have no idea! But I know where I'm going to do it — _not here_!" Jeff turned to leave, but stopped… something held him back.

Specifically, Craig held him back — the dean had climbed over his desk and hugged Jeff around the waist from behind, trying to drag him down. "You can't go!"

"Stop literalizing the metaphor!" Jeff shouted.

* * *

"Where are you going to go?"

"See, that's the beautiful thing, here. It doesn't matter."

Jeff grinned wildly as he stuffed what few belongings he cared about into the trunk and back seat of his car. Duncan was, in theory, there to help him, but he'd spent most of the day shaking his head in wonder and asking the same few questions over and over.

 _Yes_ Jeff's burst of energy arose from the revelation that Annie had been offered a permanent position with the FBI.

 _No_ Jeff was not going anywhere near Washington, DC.

 _No_ Jeff had no expectation of ever seeing Annie again.

 _Yes_ Jeff was serious about leaving Colorado.

 _Yes_ Jeff had a plan.

 _No_ Jeff wasn't going to share it.

"Not right away. I've got to get my head screwed on straight," he told Duncan for the fourth or fifth time. Also the part about him having a plan was, while not exactly a lie, definitely an exaggeration. He had an idea for a plan.

"I feel like we should call Britta," Duncan suggested. "Sit down, have a few drinks, figure this whole thing out."

"I've already talked to Britta," Jeff said, as he slammed the trunk closed. "Last night. This is it. I'm going. I'll be back," he reassured Duncan. "At some point, definitely. Probably." He cackled. "Maybe."

"Jeffrey, I'm not any better a psychologist than you are a lawyer, but I am your friend. And I wholeheartedly support you making positive changes in your life, don't get me wrong. I think it's great you want to leave Greendale, I think it's great you want to take decisive action…"

"Thank you, Ian," Jeff said with genuine warmth. "I appreciate it. And I'll be in touch."

"But right this moment you seem to be suffering some kind of —"

"Suffering? No. Enjoying. I am enjoying what very probably constitutes a manic episode." Jeff grasped Duncan firmly by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. "But I have to change my life or I am going to drown in frisbees and scotch and recrimination. I need to deal with my problems."

* * *

"See, this is just you running away from your problems, not dealing with them. You think you're being proactive, but wherever you go, you're still going to be stuck with yourself."

"I liked you better when you were high all the time," Jeff grumbled. "Hand it over."

Britta squinted at him from the doorway of the apartment that had, once upon a time, been Annie's. "You need to work on you. Throwing your life into disarray is just going to… you're just making a mess."

Jeff folded his arms. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm crazy. But I need to do something. I have to do something. If I keep on my current track, I'm going to end up like Pierce, miserable and alone and deluded. Except I'm also going to be poor, so Pierce would actually have that on me. Hand it over."

"Hand what over?"

Jeff glared at her.

"Okay, fine." She turned and headed into the apartment, stomping sullenly towards a box on the kitchen counter. "I'm going to tell her you stole it, though," Britta said over her shoulder as Jeff followed her in.

"You stole it from me."

"She asked me to! And you stole it from the trophy case…"

"It's in here?" Jeff pulled the box open, ripping tape. He peered down into it, and hesitated. It was there, in the nice frame that he'd always assumed Annie had set it in: a clipping from the _Greendale Gazette Journal Mirror: "_ Debate Team Champs!" The frame was half-hidden by photographs, mementos, pins and pens. Six years of memories, in a convenient container.

Britta scowled at him. "She also said you weren't returning her calls, which, again, super unhealthy."

"I'm cancelling my phone. Getting a new number. I'll let you know. Eventually." As though he were reaching into a vat of acid, Jeff gingerly thrust his hand into the box of history and pulled the framed clipping out.

"You're changing your number, cutting ties, moving… all to get a fresh start, and you're taking this with you?" Britta threw up her hands. "This is exactly what I'm talking about — you can't _not_ self-sabotage!"

"This isn't self-sabotage," Jeff retorted. "This is… this," he said, holding up the clipping, "is important to me. It's…" He swallowed. "It's important."

* * *

"It's amazing!" Annie's eyes were bright. "Can you believe it?"

"Barely," Britta said. She and Annie embraced again.

Almost exactly twenty-four hours after Britta had watched Jeff drive away, Annie's flight had landed. They stood under the fluorescent lights of the baggage claim, waiting for her luggage. Annie looked lively, in a way Britta hadn't seen on her in a long time. "I can barely believe it myself, they don't usually make an offer at the end of the internship and I didn't even think I impressed them that much and in three years I can apply to the FBI Academy and _God,_ it's just amazing!" She chuckled… no, she giggled. She giggled like a schoolgirl.

Britta laughed too, happy to see her so happy. "Yeah…"

Then Annie shifted gears with a precision that was almost chilly. "So what's the deal with Jeff?"

"Hmm?" Britta hoped she sounded more surprised than panicked.

"Jeff Winger." Annie raised an eyebrow. "Six foot four, early forties, takes his shirt off at the drop of a hat, kind of scruffy? Suddenly stopped returning my calls because he's being a baby?" There was a brittleness there, underlying Annie's jocular tone — Britta had known her for years enough to recognize when she was feigning casualness. The glee that had been so strong in her voice had vanished suddenly and completely.

"Yeah…" Britta glanced down at her shoes. "What happened there?"

Annie glanced around, as though concerned someone might be listening in. "It's stupid," she said. "I told him about the job thirty seconds after I found out. I thought he'd be happy for me. He said he was, and then he said he had to go, we'd talk later. That was the day before yesterday. I texted him, nothing. I tried to call him last night, but his phone was disconnected, which… I know he's…" She sighed. "You know how he can be."

Britta opened her mouth to reply, thought about it a moment, and closed her mouth again. She nodded.

Annie gave Britta a _yeah, exactly_ sort of look. "I called Frankie, but she refused to say anything about Jeff. Which was weird." She made a face. "So what is it that Frankie didn't want to tell me?"

"Well…" Britta struggled to find a good way to put it, and, coming up dry, went with a bad way instead. "Jeff's gone. He went kind of crazy yesterday. He quit his job and moved out of his apartment."

Annie looked at Britta like she'd grown a second head. "What? Where is he?"

"I don't know!" Seeing Annie's expression, Britta threw up her hands in exasperation. "Honest! I don't."

* * *

Jeff had to wait almost ten minutes, but it wasn't like he had anything else to be doing. There was really just the one guy from before Greendale that he could plausibly reach out to. He lounged in a corner booth, drank coffee, and read a newspaper while he waited. Around the time he finished reading the opinion pages and grumbling at what idiots all the columnists were, he finally got the call back. The voice on the other end of the line was warm and friendly and apologetic. "Jeff Winger! Sorry to make you wait, I had a client on the land line. What the hell can I do for you?"

"Mark, hi…" Jeff tossed the newspaper down, the better to concentrate on the conversation.

"Call me Cash, Tango!" Mark sounded well. Jeff could easily imagine him, feet up on his desk, playing with his pencil the way he'd used to, ten years back when they'd shared an office. "What's the good word? It's been, what, two years? Three? Have you finally shaken that school off?"

Jeff chuckled, only slightly nervously. "Yeah, actually. That's exactly why I'm calling you. I have shaken that school off like it was a head cold and I just drank a gallon of orange juice."

"Awesome, buddy. I can guess why you're calling, and I'm sorry." Mark's tone turned apologetic. "The answer's got to be no."

Jeff winced, but his voice never wavered. "Mark, Cash, I wasn't expecting you to hire me on the basis of —"

"Wait, hire you?" Mark sounded dumbfounded. "You mean to say Tango doesn't have something lined up?"

"Of course I… wait, what did you think I was asking?"

"I figured you wanted to use my Broncos box to schmooze somebody! I gave it up when I, you know, relocated out of Denver. Who're you looking to schmooze, though," he asked seriously, "because I do know a guy and I can get you last-minute opera tickets…"

"Cash! Cash, slow down. Here's my situation. Ready?"

"Shoot."

"One. I'm unemployed as of yesterday and I need to get the hell out of Colorado. Two. There is no second thing."

Mark let out a low whistle. "Bad breakup?"

"No. Kind of. There's a woman involved, but it's all in the past."

"Well, I'm glad you thought of me, buddy."

"Great. I need a favor, if you're willing. You've got to put some feelers out on my behalf. Me cold-calling and saying 'hey, I'm that guy they wrote the magazine article about who faked his degrees and went to community college, et cetera,' that's not going to win me any points with anyone."

"Christ, Jeff, I can do better than that — you want a job?"

Jeff nearly did a spit-take with his coffee, which fortunately there was no one there to see. "What?"

"Offer I made you back in the day still stands," Mark continued. "You'd have to move, obviously, but I'm hearing some subtle indications you might be amenable to that."

Jeff sat bolt upright in his seat. "Are you serious?"

"Absolutely! Mostly. I'm not a solo boat — we'll have to convince the partners to get you on board, but we're in an expansionary phase right now anyway, we were talking about lateral hires and there's no one I'd rather bring in at the non-equity partner level…"

"Non-equity?" Jeff repeated wryly.

"Buddy. You've been out of it for years and your degree is from a community college," Mark pointed out. "But don't worry, Tango, I'll take care of you. This is me jumping at the chance to get you on my team, is what this is. How fast can you be out here?"

Jeff considered. He'd left Thursday so that he'd be well gone before her flight came in. It was Friday evening now. By this point Annie would have landed. She must know he'd fled by now. Jeff wondered whether she understood. Probably she was angry… he ruthlessly repressed that line of thought as immaterial to the matter at hand. "I'm at a restaurant in Peoria right now —"

"Peoria? Illinois? What the hell are you doing in Illinois?"

"Calling you! Sitting waiting for you to call me back." Jeff shook his head. "I needed to get distance between me and… and there. Listen, I'll drive it and be in your office, spit-shined, first thing Monday morning."

"Make it third thing — no one's in until ten. Or actually, no, come to my house when you get here. I've got a guest room you can use until you find a place."

"Cash, I don't need to…"

"I insist!" Mark said, as Jeff had known he would. "I'll text you the address. Get in early enough Sunday and I'll make you dinner, or lunch, I don't know, whatever… and Jeff? Real sorry to hear about the thing with the girl, whatever it was."


	2. I Left Her a Note

Annie insisted Britta take her to Jeff's before her own apartment.

"I'm telling you, he's not there."

"I believe you," she said absently, staring out the passenger-side window at the scenery of Greendale, Colorado. When she'd first gone to DC she'd nearly gotten lost so many times, because for the first time in her life there wasn't a giant mountain range on the western horizon orienting her. The mountains were familiar, and their absence exciting, but she'd missed them when they were gone and she was glad to see they, at least, had stayed there waiting for her.

"We can't even get in, I don't have a key…"

"I have a key." On her keyring Annie currently had four keys, none of which were relevant to her impending future: one to the apartment that had once been Troy and Abed's, one to the Greendale Community College library building, one to Jeff's apartment, and one to the two-bedroom she'd sublet half of, back in DC.

Britta did a double take. "When did you get a key to Jeff Winger's apartment?"

"Years ago." Annie tried to remember. "When we were retaking biology and Troy was moved out. Jeff went away for a weekend and I had to water his plants," she added, a little defensively.

"For one weekend away? He had plants?"

"It was years ago," Annie repeated. "You remember how we were." _Right up until he decided to marry you_ , she didn't add.

Britta said something in reply that Annie didn't catch, distracted as she was by the memories. For years she and Jeff had danced around one another. There were no other men for her, and she could count on one hand with all the fingers left over the number of other women Jeff had expressed any interest in, after sophomore year or so. They'd never quite been a couple but they'd shared something. Something that had ended, quietly, when Jeff had dealt with the threatened shuttering of Greendale by reaching out not to her, but to Britta. 'Reaching out' was an understatement – he'd gotten engaged to her.

That had been the final straw; after it happened Annie and Jeff really were just friends, as he'd so often claimed. She moved on. There was only so much waiting around you could do before it stopped feeling romantic and started feeling like you were being an idiot.

They'd never talked about it; why start then? He'd felt the change, though, she was sure. He'd spent their sixth year at Greendale moping and flagrantly teaching poorly as if to draw her out… and then, the night she'd announced her internship, he'd expressed so much regret, and then they'd kissed…

Annie had meant for that kiss to be the closing of a book. She'd moved on from Jeff; she'd accepted and internalized the fact that they were never going to happen. It was supposed to have been a kiss goodbye, a way to for both of them to acknowledge the what-might-have-been and let it go. And really, that's all the kiss had been.

It was the look in his eyes in the instant after the kiss that had melted her. As their friends had barged in she'd been suddenly and against her will catapulted back to freshman year — it felt like a lifetime ago — and the handsome, charming man who'd looked at her like she was worth looking at. She'd remembered all the other times they'd almost kissed, times they'd cuddled, times they'd exchanged looks and smiles and… and in a rush all those old feelings had returned. For him, too, she could tell…

It had been a terrible time to start anything, of course. She was about to go, Abed was leaving, she'd spent a full year being completely over him, and neither of them knew what the hell they were doing. For the week between that kiss and her flight out, though, it was like old times. The Halloween they'd done sort-of couples costumes, and all their friends knew better than to comment on it. The time they'd basically co-hosted a holiday party at his apartment. All the times that they'd teamed up for paintball or lava world or the Greendale-wide games of freeze tag and capture the flag…

It was like old times, too, in that they didn't talk about it. As though looking directly at the thing would make the illusion melt away, as though it were too flimsy and delicate to stand up to scrutiny. The week before she boarded the plane out, when she was busy packing and planning, they'd managed to spend an awful lot of time lightly flirting, a lot of time on low-key almost-kisses. Nothing new, really. Just a return to form, really. And then they'd kissed goodbye again at the airport in a way that had felt like they'd done it a thousand times before and would do it ten thousand times again.

And yes, they'd been texting all summer. She'd exchanged a few texts with Abed and Britta. Troy, too, a couple of times. But the conversation with Jeff had been that mix of intimate and casual, the way they'd used to communicate, back in the days of pillows and blankets.

But as much as part of her wanted to live in Jeff Winger's arms forever, another part of her resented it. They'd texted so much because they both liked just interacting with one another, but they couldn't stay in that bubble forever. Things had changed between them and would continue to change, inevitably. Maybe that was why they'd avoided talking about the changed energy between them. They'd both always known that she was going to leave Greendale eventually, Jeff's fantasy about her becoming a forensics professor notwithstanding. Over the course of the summer, though, whenever Annie started to get too condemnatory about him and her and them, she'd remember the look in his eyes after that kiss, and the way she'd felt when they'd kissed goodbye: loved.

She enjoyed his company, it was as simple as that. They were a stunningly effective team, or could be, but it wasn't just about effectiveness. All the things they'd done together had been more fun because they'd done them together. Things that wouldn't have been at all pleasant without him beside her had become cherished memories. He was clever and drove her to be more clever. He was generous and sweet, but only when he thought no one was looking. He'd always listened to her and made it clear he valued her opinion, that he valued her. His texts were little presents that made her smile.

 _Talk to Jeff_ was the first item on the list she'd made on the plane, of the stuff she needed to do before she left again. _Figure it out._ It didn't make sense that he'd run away like this, except it was absolutely was the kind of stupid thing he'd pull. Now she was going to have to spend time tracking him down, time she didn't have.

"Earth to Annie! Hell-o!"

"Hmm?" Annie roused from her reverie as though from a dream, blinking and puzzled. Britta had her hands cupped over her mouth and was calling to her from the driver's seat of her small car.

"We're here," Britta informed her. "Although I don't know what you expect to see."

Annie nodded tightly as she climbed out of the car. "I don't know either. You're sure he's not here?"

"He drove off with a bunch of bags in his car…" Britta shrugged. "I guess he could have come back. Oh, did I tell you he stole back that stupid framed clipping you wanted?"

Annie whirled around. "He did?"

Britta nodded. "He came over just to get it."

 _Well_ , Annie thought, _that surely kills any chance that this isn't about him and me_. Not that she'd had any other working hypotheses.

Just in case, she knocked three times on Jeff's apartment door. No response, so she let herself in.

"Jeff?" she called, as she figured there was a nonzero chance he was hiding. "It's me…" She flicked a light on, and recoiled at the mess. Jeff's apartment had never been homey, but it had at least been tidy. At the moment, though, it looked like it had been tossed by burglars: drawers hanging open, clothes in a big pile on the couch…

Annie took a quick inventory of what was gone. At least three of his suits were missing, plus an unknown quantity of his other clothes. All three of his phone chargers were taken, too, as was the little leather shaving kit he took with him when he traveled. His lecture notes and course materials were still here where she'd last seen them, in a cardboard box in his closet, but his laptop and its case weren't there. Bare nails poked from the wall where his diploma and his bar certification should have been.

"He took everything for a trip, and everything he couldn't easily replace," Annie announced.

"I guess." Britta followed her through the apartment, watching her examine everything and saying nothing. She raised an eyebrow when Annie dove under Jeff's bed. "What are you looking for, porn?"

"He used to have a box of keepsakes and… things," Annie said from her position on her hands and knees. Valentines and get-well cards from grade school, panties from one night stands during Jeff's one-night-stand period (she didn't like to dwell on that)… Annie waved her phone, in flashlight mode, peering into the dark space. "I don't see… ah!" With a triumphant yawp, she reached under the bed and pulled out a small envelope. ANNIE was the only thing written on it.

Annie sat crosslegged on the floor next to Jeff's bed and tore the envelope open. Within was a short letter, a note really:

 _Annie —_

 _Forgive the lack of my usual eloquence but I'm in a hurry. I realized when you told me you'd gotten a job in DC that I've spent the last year, at least, either wallowing in self-pity or hanging on to an impossible fantasy. I know you need to move on and so do I. Seeing each other again at this point could only be painful. I've left and I'm pretty sure I didn't leave you any way to contact me. If I'm wrong and you can find me, which let's face it you probably can because you're my superhero, please don't. We both know you deserve better. Take whatever energy you would have expended on me, and find a decent guy and goad him into being the best he can. Maybe someday we can meet again when we've both changed enough it wouldn't be awkward._

 _All my love, Jeff_

 _PS If you're not Annie, you were probably hired by my former landlord to clean out the apartment. Feel free to steal anything. The TV is a couple of generations old but there is or was a PS3 in the sideboard cabinet in the dining room._

She sat and stared at the note for a minute or two, saying nothing.

"What is it?" asked Britta.

Wordlessly Annie handed Britta the note. Then she took out her phone and texted Jeff.

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1946:**

 **You could have just texted me, you know**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **Oh that's right you've changed your phone like a baby**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

"Whoa," Britta said, reading the note.

"You want his Playstation?" Annie asked her drily. Without waiting for a response she took the note back, folded it and stuffed it into her purse. "Former coworkers at his law firm," she said. "At least some of them liked him, and they scattered when the firm closed, so lots to work with there. Start with the ones he used to work most closely with. Mark Cash? That sounds wrong. Mark something…"

Britta looked at her quizzically.

"Greendale alumni," she continued, her voice thick. "Maybe not anyone from when he was a student, but some of the people who took his class last year probably remember him fondly. Former clients, from back when he was doing legal work. Doreen? He never tells Doreen anything — God, do I need to call her and tell her about this?" She sighed heavily.

Britta's puzzlement grew. "Who's Doreen?"

"His mother."

"You know his mother?" Britta's tone was incredulous.

"Not really. I met her once. Twice. Years ago." Annie rubbed her eyes. "Just to be on the safe side I need to call Abed — if he told anyone it would be Abed…" Her voice cracked, and Britta put an arm around her in support. Annie took a breath and blinked back tears. "He probably thought he wasn't ever going to make me cry again, the jerk."

* * *

The problem with solo cross-country driving was that you had plenty of time to yourself, to think. Thinking led to recrimination and regret. Jeff turned the radio up, but it wasn't enough to drown out the steadily increasing drumbeat of anxiety _._ He'd crashed in some side of the road motel in Nebraska Thursday night. On Friday he'd called Mark from Peoria, but he'd kept going and slept in Gary, Indiana. Saturday was one long blur. He'd hoped to make it all the way to Mark's that night but he gave up somewhere east of Pittsburgh.

Lying in a motel room and staring at the ceiling, willing himself to sleep, he couldn't help imagining what she'd say if she were there.

 _Go on and quit, quitter. 'I can't take a stab at actual emotions, I've got to run away, bluh bluh bluh,' that's you. That's what you sound like._

"It's not that," he insisted. "I don't want to hurt you any more."

 _Hurt me? When have you ever hurt me? Oh, yeah, by refusing to face facts. By denying and retreating, and gaslighting me and lying to me and running away from your feelings._

"Some of that wasn't a mistake. You were eighteen when we met. I was thirty-four. There's no possible equality there. I couldn't _not_ take advantage of you."

 _That's so wrong I don't know where to begin. That's not true, actually, I made a list. First, calendar age isn't everything, and I was a hell of a lot more mature than you ever gave me credit for. Second, even if that was true when I was eighteen, which it wasn't, it would follow that it would be less true when I was a year older, even less true when I was a year older than that… I turn twenty-five in three months. Eventually I get to be an adult._

 _"_ I'm aging too, you know, much as I would like to be a Peter Pan figure who enjoys an eternal mid-to-late-twenties-ness…"

 _Third, and this is setting aside the first two points, there's always been equality in our relationship. If anything it's tilted the other way._

Jeff scoffed. "I don't think that's true."

 _When's the last time I wanted you to do something and you didn't do it? Because I'm pretty sure you've done every single thing I've asked of you, sometimes complaining and sometimes reluctantly but always doing it, for at least the last four years. The last time you wouldn't do what I wanted was when you refused to acknowledge what was happening between us, the day I found out you'd been sleeping with Britta. Which you immediately stopped doing. Since then, what? Have you even hit on another woman once since then?_

"Once," he said weakly. "We were having a fight at the time."

 _You from 2005 would look at your total lack of a sex life and say that if you were who he'd be in ten years, kill him. Not that you should commit self-harm! I'm just saying, it's a change. You can't deny it's a change._

"I don't."

 _Look at what you're doing. You've run from me because you know if we saw each other again, I would ask you to do something. Kiss me, stay with me, sleep with me, date me, love me, and you wouldn't be able to say no._

"You'll be happier this way. This way I don't make you cry. You should be able to go off to DC and the FBI and the real world with a clear conscience. I don't want to hold you back and I don't have anything I can offer you. It's too late! I've jerked you around too long —"

 _Years too long, yes_. _I was over you, you know that? I was over you and we were done and I was okay with it, I'd moved on, and you dragged me back with your stupid nervous breakdown and fantasies about us married and happy together —_

"I didn't tell you about that!"

 _I'm just a voice in your head, you goof, come on. I was over and done and ready to move on. I moved on! And then you kiss me like a jerk and make me want to—_

"No. No," Jeff sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes. "I didn't make you, her, do anything. Real Annie wouldn't say that."

 _She wouldn't? Oh, hey, everybody gather around, the world's greatest living expert on Annie Edison is making pronouncements!_

"Annie would never blame me for her feelings or actions. She'd say she told me to kiss her, or she'd just say we kissed, and she definitely wouldn't be… isn't… mad at me for it. Not for that. I'm sure she's mad at me for this, but…"

 _Oh, no. You know I love it when people make decisions about me without talking to me first, that's like my favorite thing. But you do blame yourself, don't you? That's why you're punishing yourself like this. Yourself and Annie. And Annie, at least, deserves better._

"This is better for her. That's the whole point of this!"

 _Neither of those statements are true._

"They are!"

 _Are not._

Jeff grunted. "I left her a note."

 _That note was terrible and a mistake and she won't even find it. You should call her. Or if you can't face her voice-to-voice, get Britta or Frankie to act as a go-between. Really you should turn around and go home._

"I don't have a home."

 _You can't lie to me, I'm a voice in your head, remember? Home is wherever she is._

* * *

Annie and Britta sat at their dining room table, one last time. Annie had a legal pad in front of her, with action items she ticked off, one by one.

"Everything I'm taking is packed and boxed, ready to be shipped. I've said good-bye to Chang, Frankie, and the dean. I talked to Abed and to Jeff's mother." She paused, to gather herself for a moment. "We're on last month's rent now, and we're allegedly getting our security deposit back, unless you stay on. There's no chance you're going to end up homeless…"

"I'm going to be fine," said Britta. "I lived in New York; I can handle being alone in Greendale."

"Before you moved in here you were living in a tent," Annie reminded Britta. "And that was _with_ secret money from your parents."

"Mistakes were made," Britta allowed. "But I'll be fine!"

Annie gave her a searching look, then turned back to her notes. "Well, I've asked Frankie to keep an eye on you, so if you have any problems you can count on her. And you have my brother's contact info —"

"Annie, I'm a grown woman!" Britta insisted.

"Of course you are." Annie patted Britta's hand. "Do you have a place lined up?"

Britta folded her arms and scowled. "I got some listings off of Craigslist. I'll be fine."

"Okay, okay."

They fell silent. Annie drummed her fingers absently on the table. "Do you happen to have maybe heard from Jeff?" she asked with exaggerated casualness.

Britta glared at Annie, then softened. "I haven't. Your investigation didn't pan out?"

Annie wouldn't meet Britta's gaze. "I decided against looking for him. If he's going to be a big super baby mister mature guy about it…"

"Well, that's Jeff Winger: always impressing. Just when you think he's bottomed out, he hits a new low." Britta snickered. She felt oddly vindicated when Annie snorted with laughter, too. If they couldn't get along on anything else, she thought with resignation, at least they could badmouth Jeff together.

"Oh, I know! You should have heard the lesson plan he was going to put together for this fall," Annie said. "You'd think the Commerce Clause was Santa's more profit-driven brother… That was a joke about constitutional law," she added, off Britta's apparent puzzlement.

"I knew that," Britta lied. "When were you and Jeff talking about his lesson plans?"

Annie shrugged. "We were talking or texting or something almost every day I was at the internship. I texted you, too," she said, a little defensively.

Britta scoffed. "You texted me maybe four times. Maybe. And since when was Jeff spending time working on a lesson plan? This past year his syllabus for all his courses was 'the class brings in DVDs and votes on which one to watch.'"

"Yeah, I know," Annie said. She stared at the tabletop in front of her. "I may have goaded him a little. You know."

Britta tried to think of something helpful to say. "You guys are weird."

"We were weird. Now we're nothing, because…" Annie grimaced. "Because first he was going to marry you, and now he can't even say goodbye to my face."

"Marry me…?" Britta looked puzzled, then surprised as she remembered. "Wow, I completely forgot about that. That was a really crazy day."

"Crazy. Yeah." Annie peered down at her notes, avoiding Britta's gaze. She picked up her pen and set it down again, twice. "It's not like we were together," she said suddenly. "But it's like… we weren't… and you go and…"

"I don't remember what I was thinking," Britta said apologetically. "I mean, I knew you two were, like, lava joust buddies…"

Annie looked up at her.

"Okay. Dumb way to say that." Britta drummed her fingers on the tabletop and bit her lip. "It was a stupid thing and a crazy day and we never talked about it. And I guess it really messed up our relationship, and I'm sorry for that."

"I know, and it's stupid, I just… thanks." Annie shook her head in disgust. "It's not like he and I ever talked about it, either," she said tightly. "So now I guess I'll just go and never see him again because apparently that's what he wants even though we didn't talk about that, either, why break a streak, and hey, my flight leaves in under two hours so there's a real narrow window for him to turn this around and between you and me and the wall _I don't think he's going to pull it off_." She rested her head heavily against the tabletop.

Britta patted the back of Annie's head awkwardly. "I know I'm probably the last person you want to hear from, about Jeff Winger…"

"Mmm-hmm," Annie whimpered, without moving.

"But you know, if he's going to treat you like this, fuck him, right? You've wasted a lot of energy on —"

"I know!"

"And there's plenty of guys who —"

"I know!"

"And he is, frankly, not the —"

"I know!" Annie lifted her head and sat up in her seat. "But I do appreciate hearing someone else say it. We haven't always gotten along, but… thanks."

"Girls?" Britta offered hopefully.

"Girls," agreed Annie. They embraced, awkwardly.

"I love you, but this feels weird," said Britta.

"Yeah, it does," Annie said with a sigh. They pulled apart. "Okay, that was sweet and all, but we really need to go to the airport now."


	3. She's Not My Ex!

Early afternoon on Sunday Jeff reached Mark's house in Newton, an upscale suburb to the west of the city. He could have been there earlier, but he took a little extra time cleaning himself up first; no reason to make a bad impression. He hadn't seen Mark in a few years and it was important that things go well. He'd thought about going so far as to change into his least-rumpled suit, but decided that would be gilding the lily. Mark had sounded thrilled to hear from him, after all.

Man's doing well for himself, Jeff thought as he surveyed Mark's home. A half hour from the city center, even closer to Fenway Park. Big lawn with a lot of trees, at least three bedrooms. It occurred to him to wonder whether Mark had married. If he had kids. Why he'd shut down his practice in Colorado (thriving, by all accounts) to relocate two time zones over and sign onto Biddle, Heath, Johnson & Clay. All questions that, no doubt, had answers…

There were two cars in the open garage and one parked in the driveway already. Jeff pulled in next to the third car. Late-model BMW, he noted. Local license plate. Made his worn Lexus look dingy by comparison, but if things went well he'd be able to upgrade.

No answer when he rang the bell, so Jeff tried calling Mark's cell.

He picked up immediately. "Hey, buddy, where are you? No problems I hope?"

Jeff was struck again by how eager Mark sounded. "At your front door," he said, "unless I have the wrong house…"

"Oh, great! We're in the back yard — just come around."

"Sure," Jeff said, already walking around the side of the house. And there Mark was, holding his phone to his ear and grinning like he'd just won a trivia contest.

"Tango!" he cried, hanging up and extending his arms for an embrace. "God, it's good to see you!"

"Hey, Cash," Jeff said. Seven years ago he'd have ducked Mark's hug. Three years ago he'd have cringed. But after all his time at Greendale, Jeff Winger had become a man inured to casual hugging. He accepted and returned the embrace. "You're looking good," he said, and meant it — Mark had always appeared to Jeff like he ought to be deep underground forging magical rings out of Rhinegold. Despite the added years, he seemed if anything younger: healthier, less pale, not so wizened.

"Let me introduce you," Mark said, gesturing to the man and woman seated at a patio table. "This is my wife Eleanor, and this is Will Stone. This is Tango — my old partner Jeff."

Jeff blinked as he and Stone eyed one another. The man was ringing some kind of bell… then he had it: Pierce's estate executor, who'd come in with a polygraph machine. Stone was giving him the same suspicious side-eye that he'd been giving Stone, too.

"Jeff, welcome. I've heard so much about you," Eleanor said. Jeff shifted his attention from Stone, and sized her up quickly. Small, white, mid-thirties, conservative clothes coded as upper-class or at least well-educated, slight nervousness behind her smile as though she were worried about making a bad impression. "Lemonade? You must be exhausted after your trip."

"Absolutely," Jeff said, sliding into the empty seat further from Eleanor and closer to Stone. "Thank you so much."

"Nice to meet you, Mr. Winger," Stone said, extending a hand. His expression was flinty and intent.

Okay, there's a story here, Jeff thought. No reason not to play along for the moment at least. "And you," he said, shaking Stone's hand.

"Our daughter is with my mother this weekend," Eleanor said as she poured Jeff a lemonade. "Julie's eighteen months. Inside it's a mess," she added, gesturing towards the house, "but we moved some of the junk out of the guest room for you."

"Speaking of, let me get your bags." Mark hadn't sat back down. "Sit, sit, you just drove all this way — enjoy the lemonade. I'll be two seconds. You leave it locked?"

"You don't need to…" Jeff remembered how Mark could be, when he'd decided to do something nice for you. Easiest just to let him do it. "Thanks." He tossed Mark his keys.

Jeff, Eleanor, and Stone watched Mark go.

"He's so excited you're here." Eleanor smiled. "You know how he gets, I suppose. He had a big breakfast planned, saltenas. He's been on a Bolivian cuisine kick. I knew how long the drive was, so I talked him into dinner instead — I hope you like modongo?"

"Absolutely," Jeff said, though he had no idea what modongo was. It could have been anything from pancakes to old car engine parts. "Mark still does the gourmet cooking, I take it?"

"It's how we met!" Eleanor beamed.

She looked ready to jump into a delightful meet-cute story right out of a rom-com (boy meets wok?), but Stone cleared his throat. "What brings you so far east, Mr. Winger?"

"I needed a change of scenery," Jeff said cautiously. It wasn't at all clear to him why Stone was pretending they hadn't met once before, back at Greendale. "Mark was kind enough to take me in."

"I see." Stone's expression could best be read as a glower. He'd been warm enough at the bar after Pierce's bequest, Jeff recalled.

"Will is a partner at Biddle Heath, too," Eleanor offered.

Jeff nodded. "So hopefully you'll be my boss," he said. See how I'm going along with you, asshole? See how obliging I am?

"Hopefully," Stone agreed. "I've heard a lot of good things."

* * *

Annie's flight was delayed, she missed her connection, she had to stay overnight at a hotel connected to the airport in Chicago, the next flight was delayed too, it was a whole big thing and she might have gotten there sooner if she'd just rented a car and driven. Then she discovered just how long it took to ride the subway. The blue line from the airport to the green line to the red line and she had to haul her suitcases the whole way and yes it was less than two dollars and would have been thirty with a taxi but… Nevertheless, eventually she reached her new home.

She didn't know a soul in the city, of course, but Frankie had helped her out via the Greendale Alumni Housing Connection web site — Tory Jenkins was the only name on the list for the entire region. So it was with a sense of mounting excitement that she walked up the steps to the second-floor apartment on a side street a quarter-mile from the nearest train station, and knocked on the door.

"Hello, Tory? I'm —" Annie froze, mid-sentence, when she saw who had answered the door. Vicki, formerly of Greendale, who had once forced a pencil through Pierce's cheek.

"Crap," said Vicki. "You're Annie Edison? I thought you were Annie Kim! I thought I was getting the other one… damn it."

"Vicki?" Annie gasped.

Vicki sighed. "I should have known. It's always about you people. I go two thousand miles to get away from you, and yet you keep coming. God. Are all the rest of you here, too?"

"Vicki…"

"Because if you think you and what's-his-name, your boyfriend with the muscles and the drinking problem, if you think I'm going to let you shove me out of my own apartment so you can screw —"

"Vicki!"

"Oh, can it, princess."

Confused, Annie held up a folded printout. "The website said Tory Jenkins…"

Vicki shrugged. "I was tired of Vicki, so I tried Tory, and no, it didn't take, so don't call me Tory." She looked Annie up and down. "Well, you may as well come in."

Annie hefted her suitcases and followed Vicki into the apartment. Two bedrooms, the slightly smaller one empty but for a futon. Surprisingly clean bathroom and kitchen. Sparsely furnished living room dominated by a television with three different gaming consoles connected. "This is a nice place," she offered.

"Don't mess it up," Vicki warned her. "I have it all just how I want it. Is your boyfriend lugging the rest of your stuff?"

Annie delicately set her luggage down in the empty bedroom. "Actually, just to clarify, Jeff and I were never dating and we're definitely not together now. He was engaged to someone else, and… that doesn't matter. I don't know where he is, but probably he's still in Colorado. Or maybe he went out to Cali."

"He can't live here unless you guys are willing to pay two-thirds… no, three-quarters of the rent."

"Vicki, he's not even in this time zone!"

Vicki's eyes narrowed. "I've known you people for what, six years? Seven? He's practically always followed you around like a puppy. Probably he's stalking you from one of the houses across the street…"

"But… He… I…" Annie struggled to provide a response.

Something in her expression must have startled Vicki, whose face softened as she looked at her. "It's okay," she said, only a little sullenly. "You guys had a fight and now you're apart, for however long that lasts…"

"I'm not going to see him again any time soon. You definitely aren't," Annie assured her.

"I'll believe that when I see it. Or don't see it. Him. Whatever." Vicki gestured dismissively. "Anyway, welcome to Somerville. It's like Cambridge but with less cultural cachet. Instead of Harvard we have Tufts and the bus service isn't as good."

"Thanks," Annie said weakly.

"I've been here for five months, so I basically know my way around. You can ask me anything."

"Great. Where's the nearest grocery store? Do I need to take the bus to get to it, or…?"

"No idea. So is that all your stuff?" Vicki gave Annie's luggage a critical eye. "That's not much. What are you doing out here? Don't say you're taking over my great-aunt's bakery," Vicki warned her, "because I'm doing that and I already have all the help I need, thanks much."

"Oh!" Annie bounced on the balls of her feet, pleased with the chance to tell someone. "I'm working for the FBI!"

Vicki snorted. "For serious?"

"It's just an office job. I'm at the very bottom of the totem pole. I think. GS-5. Mostly I'll be… making photocopies? Answering the phone? I'm not a hundred percent sure." Annie shook her head. "In three years I can apply to the Academy, which…"

"Oh," Vicki said, sounding equal parts bemused and disgusted. "Your face just lit up. I didn't think real people's faces ever did that." She looked thoughtful a moment. "Isn't the FBI in, like, Washington?"

"That's where the headquarters is, yes." Annie nodded quickly. "But the FBI has fifty-six regional offices, including one in downtown Boston."

* * *

The day he moved out of Mark and Eleanor's guest bedroom Jeff finally gave in and called Britta.

"Hello mysterious unknown number," was Britta's suspicious greeting. "I agree to nothing and grant you no permission for anything, I decline any and all end-user license agreements, I won't participate in your poll, I don't give you permission to record this call, and you can't claim otherwise without…"

"Britta."

"Jeff! Where are you? You deleted your email and your Twitter and your Facebook and your Instagram –"

"I did, yeah."

"You big drama queen! It's been weeks! I figured you would be gone the weekend Annie was here, but…"

"I told you, I'm not coming back. I'm sitting in my office staring at the city skyline and admiring the fact that Greendale is two thousand miles away." Actually he was in his apartment, staring at the framed clipping of him and Annie at the debate, which he'd hung a few minutes earlier. "I'm working with Mark again… we used to be lawyers together, back in the day…"

Britta chuckled.

"What's funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," Britta said. Mark that he used to work with had been literally the first name on Annie's list of leads. Then she did a double take. "Wait, you're two thousand miles away?"

"I know, it's going to be hard for you to live your life without being able to bask in my majestic presence. But like a fledgling eagle leaving the nest, so too must I spread my wings and fly. I'll text you my address. This is my new cell number, by the way."

"Wow, so you really aren't coming back?"

"I'm really not. Did you guys have a pool going?"

"You wish," scoffed Britta. "I mean, Craig and Ian and Frankie and me, we'll all miss you, but I think we'll get by."

"Speaking of getting by," Jeff said seriously, "I assume you'd have mentioned it by now if Annie was anything but spectacular."

"Why are you asking me? Haven't you been stalking her online? That's what social media is for: stalking your exes."

"She's not my ex!" Jeff snapped. "And no, I've been abstaining from… everything up to and including LinkedIn."

Britta snorted. "Like you could resist."

"I manage to avoid carbs —" He cleared his throat. "So she's all right? Being amazing? Probably not real happy with me…"

"Uh, yeah. She was pretty upset, dumbass. I'm kind of still mad at you on her behalf, actually. If you'd called me last week I might have hung up on you. Made you suffer a little."

"It's better this way. And trust me, I've suffered enough."

Britta shook her head, though she knew he couldn't see it. "It was a dumb move."

"Well, it's done, so, here we are," Jeff snapped.

They were silent for a couple of seconds.

"You should come visit sometime," he offered. "I'm sure you'd find all the Revolutionary War stuff inspiring. Tax protestors and rebels against a tyrannical empire and tea in the harbor."

Britta harrumphed. "Bunch of white male slave owners who appropriated native culture and probably did massive environmental damage littering… wait." She blinked. "Where are you?"

"Boston," said Jeff. "Didn't I say?"

"You definitely did not." Britta wondered if he could hear her grin over the phone.

"Anyway. Annie's back in DC by now, right? I was thinking I should fly back out in the near future. I kind of left without talking to my mother…"

Britta was bent over double, trying to hold in peals of laughter. "Uh huh," she gasped.

"…Okay, you're laughing." Jeff sounded cross. "Why are you laughing?"

"I know something you don't know!" she gasped with delight, and hung up quickly.


	4. Is That What He Said?

Annie had worried a little, when she moved in, that she needed to start looking for another place to live immediately. But in the weeks since she'd come to Boston (well, not Boston, Cambridge) (well, not Cambridge, Somerville) Vicki had warmed to her considerably, a result Annie attributed to several factors working in concert.

Factor one: Cleanliness. Vicki was a stickler for cleanliness whose enthusiasm for disinfectant and lack of grime approached Annie's own. Annie had gotten used to being the de facto cleaning lady at her old apartment; living with Vicki made for a refreshing change. Yes, Abed and Troy and later Britta would all tidy up, with varying degrees of foot-dragging and passive-aggression, when she'd pressed them, but Vicki actually cleaned up after herself without being asked and seemed just as pleased that Annie did the same. Vicki's standard for what constituted 'clean' was a little lower than Annie's, but not so much so as to lead to problems.

Factor two: Friendliness. Annie Edison was a bright ray of sunshine, dammit, and she wasn't going to let a bad first impression get the better of her, even if it was a first impression that Vicki had gotten of her gradually over a six-year period. It's not like Vicki had ever actively hated Annie; she'd only ever hated the study group in general and Pierce in particular. Annie had been splash-damage; she hadn't even remembered Annie's name. So Annie was bound and determined to laugh at Vicki's jokes, cluck her tongue sympathetically at Vicki's complaints, marvel at Vicki's triumphs, and pretend to enjoy whatever Vicki's favorite television was. That last strategy had been especially key with Abed, and she was confident she could adapt it here. Also, most television was pretty okay if you gave it a chance; it had taken the better part of a year but eventually she'd enjoyed _Inspector Spacetime_.

Factor three: Gossip. For someone who claimed to have only a distant disdain for the Greendale Seven (aka the the Spanish study group, aka the Anthropology study group, aka the Biology study group, aka the History study group, aka the Save Greendale Committee, aka the Activities Committee, aka the Nipple-Dippers), Vicki never tired of hearing stories about what idiots they'd been. Annie couched her badmouthing of her friends in only the most affectionate of terms, but Vicki was insatiable. She especially enjoyed any story that featured Pierce suffering, which to be fair was a decent number of them. She also staunchly agreed with Annie that Jeff Winger was a real piece of work — she'd always thought so, she'd said, but especially now that she had the inside scoop.

Factor four: Patience.

* * *

"Settle an argument," Vicki demanded as soon as Annie came home one day. "Which of these is better?" She pointed to two pound cakes on the kitchen counter.

"Uh, okay," Annie said cautiously as she approached the cakes. "Am I judging based on appearance, smell, taste, nutritional content, or… do you have nutritional information?"

Vicki shook her head. "One of them is the way we make pound cake now. The other is the way my idiot cousin wants to start making it."

Annie tried to deflect. "I'm really not a pound cake person…"

"Ugh! Of course you're a tiny little princess who doesn't eat cake, we all get it!" snapped Vicki. "One bite of each won't kill you. Come on."

"You know, speaking of baking, I wanted to ask you about the stuff in the fridge." Annie glanced at Vicki, then back at the cakes, trying to guess which was the one Vicki wanted her to endorse. "You know the six boxes of muffins in there?"

"They're not muffins, they're chuffins. What about them?" Vicki stood, arms folded, ready to judge Annie's complaints as meaningless.

"Well, they take up a lot of space."

"It's not like there's anything else in there."

"That's true," Annie said, "but only because I haven't bought any groceries because there isn't any space. Maybe the chuffins could be in a refrigerator at the bakery, or…?"

Vicki scoffed. "Yeah, no. There's no room over there — have you even been? It's like the size of a closet… c'mon. Try the cake." She thrust a fork in Annie's direction, then stared at Annie as she reluctantly ate one bite of each pound cake. "Well?"

Annie shrugged helplessly. "Well, um. One is kind of lemony and one isn't."

Vicki waited for her to provide more of an opinion. "And?"

Just then the toilet flushed. Annie turned, confused. "Who's in the bathroom?"

"My stupid cousin," said Vicki. "You remember, from Greendale?"

"You had a cousin?"

"Uh, yeah," Vicki said in a _duh_ sort of way. "You must have seen us together."

"Okay."

"Plus we look a lot alike."

"I don't…" Annie trailed off as the woman in the bathroom came into the kitchen. "Quendra?"

The blonde smiled, as though it brought her pleasure to hear her own name. "Hi? You must be Vicki's new roommate?"

"Annie's from Greendale, too," Vicki announced.

"Do you not remember me?" Annie asked, surprised. "We…" She tried to remember an appropriate occasion. "My friend Jeff tried to get you into our Anthropology study group sophomore year?"

"Um…" Quendra wrinkled her nose, concentrating. "Oh!" she cried, her face lighting up. "You're his girlfriend he wanted to make jealous!"

Annie let out a nervous laugh. "What? No! I'm not — wasn't… did he say that? Is that what he said? Did he say that? Did he say he wanted to make me jealous?" She took a deep breath and tried to focus on the matter at hand. _It was years ago and he was sleeping with Britta at the time and he wouldn't give you a straight answer then either so what do you care?_ "Did he?"

"I dunno, it was years ago… wow!" Quendra's response to Annie was one of dull surprise. "So how have you been? Are you and Jeb still together?"

"Jeff," Vicki said. "And she's weird about it. Says they weren't together."

Quendra tried to make a _wow, that's so interesting_ noise but it came out as a _wow, I'm pretending that I care_ noise.

"Okay, well, first of all, Jeff and I…" Annie screwed her eyes shut and shook her head. "Wait. Back it up. You're cousins?"

"Uh, yeah," Vicki said as if it were obvious. "We look basically identical."

Annie looked at Vicki, then at Quendra, and then back to Vicki. "Absolutely."

"Our great-aunt Myrtle died and left us each half of her business," Quendra said. "So we moved out here from Greendale. I lived here for the first few months." She gestured vaguely around the apartment. "But Vicki's terrible and I couldn't stand living with her for one single second longer, I mean she is awful and I can barely handle working with her also we're kind of running the bakery into the ground."

"Shut up, Quendra," muttered Vicki.

"Oh, come on, it's Annie!" cried Quendra. "I remember you now!" she told Annie. "You were always playing crazy games with your hot boyfriend and your weird roommates —"

"He wasn't my boyfriend," Annie protested weakly. "Is that really how people outside the study group saw us?" _No wonder I went on four dates in six years_.

"Let's get the subject shifted off of your problems and back onto our much more interesting problems," suggested Vicki. "Pick a pound cake."

"Ooh, yeah," said Quendra.

"I don't… this one is lemony, and this one isn't." Annie pointed at each cake in turn. "Which one is better depends on what you're feeling up for, you know?"

"Yeah, yeah," grumbled Vicki. "But which one are you feeling up for, right now? And don't say neither because you don't like cake. Everybody likes cake, you're lying if you say you don't like cake."

"She could have an allergy," pointed out Quendra.

"She doesn't, though," Vicki said confidently. "You don't, do you? Lactose and gluten and stuff, those are all cool, right?"

"Yes! No! I mean…" Annie flailed about for an escape. "Did I ever tell you about the time Pierce probably broke a frozen yogurt machine at the mall?"

"Yeah, it wasn't actually much of a story."

Annie gave up. "If I had to pick one I'd pick the not-lemony one. Which is not to say the lemon-flavored cake isn't good. It's just as good! Better, maybe! Or not! It's really close. I just don't care for the lemon as much…"

"Hah!" Vicki waved her finger in Quendra's face. "I told you! Lemon is for losers!"

"Aw, man," mumbled Quendra.

* * *

"I'm just going to come right out and ask," Jeff said. "Does the name Pierce Hawthorne mean anything to you?" He sat in Mark's office, leaning back and sipping coffee.

Mark had his feet up on his own desk, which was a little precarious, but he liked the way it made him feel cool, he said. "Pierce Hawthorne? Hawthorne Wipes, Hawthorne Napkins, Hawthorne Paper Products?"

Jeff nodded. "That's him."

"Why do you ask?"

"I used to take classes at the community college with him."

"Not an answer to my question, Tango. Why are you suddenly all up on school chums?"

Jeff considered several possible answers before replying. "I really need something to distract me from my own head right now, and the Schmidt case isn't cutting it."

"Because of Annie?" Mark asked sympathetically. In a moment of weakness — or rather, several moments of alcohol-lubricated weakness over the course of weeks — Jeff had confided in Mark about his ultimate reason for leaving Greendale.

"No, I just…" Jeff sighed. Mark was a lot of things but 'willing to let a subject drop' wasn't one of them. "Work with me."

"All right, all right… you know my view on it."

"Pierce Hawthorne," Jeff said firmly. "Did he ever hire you, or anyone at the firm, or…?"

"I don't think so, chief," Mark said. "For one thing, he's dead. I remember Will flew to Denver to handle his bequest."

"Right, so, William Stone worked for him, then."

Mark shook his head. "Will used to do trusts and estates at Marlon Finch. As I recall — you'd have to ask him to be sure — he assisted on the Hawthorne will seven, eight years back, when you and I were still associates. There was some kind of snafu at Marlon Finch and even though he didn't work there any more, he ended up executing the estate."

"Some kind of snafu? What kind of snafu would require him to go back to it like that?"

"I dunno, boss, I'm not an estate lawyer." Mark shrugged. "Again, what's this all about?"

"I met Stone at Pierce's bequest," Jeff explained. He figured if he could trust anyone, it was Mark. "We were… kind of friends. Pierce and me, I mean. Then in his will he called me gay and left me a bottle of single-malt." Jeff made a sour face. "He had messages for everybody in our old study group, because Pierce always had to get in the last word. Then afterwards we went out for drinks and Stone got falling-down drunk and claimed Pierce had died masturbating to death."

"Masturbating to death?" Mark repeated.

"There was also this whole thing with frozen sperm, it's not important." Jeff waved it off. "But now I find out that he recruited you to come out here, and now I'm out here, and the story of how Pierce died sounds kind of absurd…"

"I'm sorry, what are you suggesting?" Mark asked. "Because it sounds like you're suggesting something illegal."

"What if… I'm just laying this out there… what if Pierce faked his death?"

"If he faked his death would he pick such a ridiculous cause of death?" Mark mulled it over. "If I faked my death and I could pick any cause, if it didn't have to be an accident at sea where my body wasn't recovered… I'd go with rescuing orphans from a burning parochial school, or stepping in front of a bullet meant for Judi Dench, or… anything more heroic than masturbating to death."

"Ah-ah-ah!" Jeff raised a finger and grinned. "But isn't that what makes it the perfect cover story?"

"Well…" Mark had an expression his face Jeff recognized as _I'm way too nice to tell you I think you're being crazy_. "I guess you knew Hawthorne better than I did," he allowed, "but it sounds a little far-fetched."

"Hmmph."

"Of course, any story that involves someone faking their death is going to sound far-fetched," Mark said thoughtfully. "That's something that just doesn't happen outside bad crime dramas… well, Ken Kesey tried to fake his death. Didn't work out for him. Is your friend smarter than Ken Kesey?"

"I think Pierce claimed to have beaten Ken Kesey in a drinking contest once…" Jeff sighed. "I know, I know it sounds crazy. Stone's hiding something from me, though, I'm sure of it."

"Well, talk to him about it," Mark suggested. "I mean, you don't need me to. Do you?" His face lit up suddenly. "I could, if you want. We could arrange a dinner party with a surprise ambush interview —"

"That's all right," Jeff assured him. "I'll talk to him. You're right; I can just ask him. He probably thinks it's weird that I haven't."

"On another subject," Mark said, "have you given any more consideration to Eleanor's offer?"

"I really don't need to be set up with anyone," Jeff said with a scowl. "Annie — I mean, it's not a priority right now, and if it was, I wouldn't need to be set up."

"You can't keep mooning over Annie Edison forever," Mark chided him. "At least, not if you aren't going to head down to DC and visit her."

Jeff scoffed. "I can't —"

"Amtrak runs a train from Boston to DC close to twenty times a day," Mark declared. "You leave South Station at 9:30 on Friday night, you're in DC before seven o'clock Saturday morning. Coming back you could take the Acela up Sunday afternoon, leave at four and get in before midnight."

Jeff stared at him for a moment.

"Just looking out for you, buddy," Mark said. "Also I found her on Facebook but everything's locked down." He pointed to his computer screen, but Jeff refused to turn his head. "Annie Edison, 24/F. Riverside High School class of 2009. Greendale Community College, blah blah blah. FBI. Location not given but it's definitely her. I could maybe get in if we had a friend in common — which of your friends is most likely to accept a random stranger's friend request?"

"I'm not too nice to tell you I think you're being crazy," Jeff said slowly.

"This wouldn't be necessary if you hadn't burned your social media presence to the ground in what someone who didn't care as much about your feelings as me might call a tantrum." Mark smiled. "Tango, I've known you for many years. There was an interruption, yes, but I'm impressed with the personal growth you've exhibited since then. And you have been off your feed about this girl for a long, long time."

"I haven't…" Jeff stopped, because he knew it was pointless. "Fine. I know."

"You've got to either call up this woman or else move on and let Eleanor introduce you to her spin class instructor." Mark tented his fingers. "She's probably moving on. Annie, not the spin instructor. Although, her too, eventually."

"Cash, I want her to move on. I hope she is." _You don't mean that_ , part of Jeff insisted. _You want her to pine for you the way you're pining for her._ "I just want her to be happy."

* * *

"Good morning, Annie!" said the guy whose name Annie didn't know. He greeted her almost every morning on the way to work, when she came into Beans 'n Things, the coffee shop by her apartment. This was less creepy than it might have been: she and the guy had gotten into an involved conversation about the best sitcoms on Netflix, on one of her first days in Somerville. She'd mentioned her name at some point during that discussion and she was absolutely one hundred percent certain he'd given his, but she couldn't for the life of her remember it. He was sitting in the front window of the coffee shop with a laptop, nearly every morning. He was definitely working, there were spreadsheets on the screen of the laptop whenever she peeked — but he worked from home, apparently. Home meaning the coffee shop. It was possible he lived at the coffee shop.

"Good morning… buckaroo," Annie responded. Every morning she hoped she'd remember his name, or else that someone else would ask his name, or that he'd order something and give his name to the barista, or _something_ so that she didn't have to ask his name. She'd taken to addressing him with a different vaguely uncool nickname each time, which hopefully made her seem like a moderately pathetically uncool girl instead of a really rude girl. It was way too late to ask him.

"Small americano, extra shot?" the barista — whose name was Jeanne, Annie knew that one — asked her.

She nodded absently, and paid. The pittance she was paid meant that a nice cup of coffee in the morning was basically the only luxury she could afford. "So, what's the good word?" she asked the guy whose name she didn't know.

The guy whose name she didn't know shrugged. "Unrest in the middle east, concern over climate change, the current crop of fall comedies are universally terrible. The usual. You?"

"My roommate has filled our fridge with chuffins," Annie confided.

"What's a chuffin?" the guy whose name Annie didn't know asked.

"I don't know. It looks like a muffin. There's six dozen of them in the fridge for some reason."

The guy whose name Annie didn't know frowned. "That's a lot… are they on an all-chuffin diet?"

"No." Annie frowned. "At least I don't think so."

"Are they any good? Did you try one?"

Annie shook her head no. "I'm on real thin ice with my roommate; she used to really hate this group that I was part of…"

"Let me guess: some kind of right-wing activist group," the guy whose name Annie didn't know said. "Probably anti-birth-control, because anti-abortion is too moderate for you."

Annie chuckled. "Yes, exactly."

"I was trying to be funny," the guy whose name Annie didn't know said, his tone suddenly turned serious.

"I got that."

"You're a woman in your twenties, you're in Somerville — it's a safe bet you fall on the left side of the spectrum."

"Uh huh."

"Hence the irony."

"You know, you explaining the joke makes it so much funnier…"

"Really?" the guy whose name Annie didn't know sounded skeptical. "I've been told the opposite."

"Those people are fools," Annie assured him.

"Small americano, extra shot," Jeanne the barista announced.

"See you, Annie," the cute guy whose name Annie didn't know who flirted with her every morning said, as she left the coffee shop.

"See you!" _You see that?_ Annie told herself. _A cute guy — a different cute guy — a cute guy who isn't Jeff Winger — being cute at you. That's good. That's a thing you should like._

 _It's like_ Inspector Spacetime _. Act like you like it until you like it. This is moving on._


	5. Like Nibbling on Your Earlobe

Jeff stood in Stone's office doorway, knocking on the doorframe. "Excuse me, Will? You have a minute?"

Stone was at his standing desk, with one document open on one screen of his computer and another on the other. He glanced Jeff's way. "Of course. Do you have the interrogatories for Schmidt?"

Jeff nodded. "Yeah, I can email them to you. But it's not about the Schmidt case, it's about Pierce Hawthorne." He eyed the other man, but Stone betrayed nothing.

"What about him?"

"You were the executor of his estate," Jeff said. When Stone failed to respond, he pressed on. "At Mark's, a couple of weeks ago, you acted like you didn't know me, and I played along. Which, hey, I'll play along. I just don't understand why."

"Could you email me the interrogatories?" Stone asked him.

"See, this right here is what I don't understand." Jeff gestured to the space between them. "Again, I'm willing to play along in whatever way you need me to. I'd just like to understand why, or at least I'd appreciate you telling me you aren't going to tell me. You're being weird, Will."

Stone's mouth tightened slightly. "Come in and close the door, Jeff," he said.

Jeff almost made a face at the theatrics, but did as he was told.

"Have a seat." Stone took a few steps over to his windowsill, and leaned against it. Then his whole body sagged and he slid into a chair in the corner of his office. "Bleah," he sighed, blowing a lungful of air out. He rested an elbow on the table next to him and set his chin upon it. "So the thing about Pierce Hawthorne," he said breezily, "is that he had a complicated will. I mean, stupid complicated. Clauses and clauses and clauses. I helped write part of it, back when I was at Marlon Finch in Denver. The damn thing runs three volumes."

"I never actually saw the will," Jeff mused.

"Trust me, you don't want to. Also big parts of it are confidential." Stone made a sour face. "You know he was worth over seventy million dollars?"

Jeff raised his eyebrows. "That sounds high…"

"Getting a reasonable valuation on everything isn't trivial — how much do you think monopoly control over six megaHertz of wireless spectrum is worth? Nobody's using it for anything, does that make it worthless? How about a machine that detects love?"

Jeff stirred in his seat — _a machine that detects love?_ It made him think of Borchert's lab, over a year ago, and that made him think of Annie, and that…

Stone, meanwhile, was shaking his head. "Almost everything he had was layered in shell corporations and offshore accounts. He was his half-brother's sole heir…"

"Gilbert is dead?" Jeff sat up in his seat. "I didn't know."

Stone nodded dismissively. "Gilbert Lawson was in a car crash about six months before Hawthorne's death. Very sad, don't get me wrong. I never met the man."

"He was, uh, a decent guy. Nicer than Pierce, most of the time…"

"Lawson's death hit Hawthorne hard," Stone explained. "He spent the last months of his life revising and expanding his will. Making arrangement after arrangement, trust after trust, for the event of his death. I'd left Marlon Finch by then and moved out here, so this part is secondhand. I'm told he barely managed to get it done before his own untimely passing."

"Troy inherited the fortune, didn't he? Troy Barnes?"

Stone made a so-so gesture. "Hawthorne left your friend Troy just over fourteen million. With a pile of riders and restrictions, as you probably remember. I said at the time it was the bulk of the Hawthorne fortune, which it wasn't and isn't, but I was just carrying out instructions. In fact it's about twenty percent of the total fortune, still enough to ruin a guy's life if he can't handle it. Though as far as I know he's doing fine. There was a run-in with pirates during his trip, but that was all taken care of. He's in LA now, if you were wondering."

"So…" Jeff tried to figure out where Stone was going with this. "The bulk of the Hawthorne fortune is intact? Who controls it?"

"Hawthorne controls it," Stone said simply. "Despite being dead." He rolled his eyes.

"What?"

"It's all tied up in trusts and limited-use accounts and nonprofit foundations with very specific operating instructions… I told you, when we had the will printed it ran to three volumes."

Jeff leaned back in his seat. "This is an incredible series of revelations and all, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't address the question of why you pretended not to know me, when we met again at Mark's house."

"Your friend Mark was on a list of lawyers that the Pierce Hawthorne Thunder & Lasers Secret Foundation has promised my firm a small cash prize for convincing to relocate."

"The 'Pierce Hawthorne Thunder & Lasers Secret Foundation?' " Jeff repeated.

"Hawthorne named it."

"Clearly."

"But one of the conditions of the Thunder & Lasers Secret Foundation award is that the subjects not be aware of the Hawthorne web of foundations' interest in them." Stone cleared his throat. "I wasn't sure I could tell you any of this, so I played it close to my chest when we met. But, uh, apparently it's fine."

"I'm not on the list?"

"You're on a different list, different rules, I can't go into detail obviously." Stone shrugged. "I mean, you remember the whole stupid thing with the polygraph machine, you and Annie Edison —"

"What do you mean," Jeff interrupted, "me and Annie Edison?"

Stone gave him a blank look. "I just said I can't go into detail."

"So Pierce is being weird and controlling at me… from beyond the grave?" Jeff scratched his chin. "I wish I could say I was surprised."

"I'm not saying that the Thunder & Lasers Secret Foundation's ultimate purpose was drawing you, personally yet indirectly, away from Colorado," Stone added. "That would not be an appropriate thing for me to say."

"Huh." Jeff and Stone looked at one another for a moment. "Is there anything it would be appropriate for you to tell me, or…?"

Stone cleared his throat. "I really do need the Schmidt interrogatories ASAP. It's not related to Hawthorne, but… you know."

"Yeah."

"You work for me."

"Yes."

"Well, we both work for clients."

"Yes."

"But I'm your boss."

"Yeah."

"One of them. For now."

"Uh, yeah?"

"Oh, that wasn't a threat," Stone assured him. "Next year, year after, you'll be an equity partner, too, I'm sure."

"Ah."

"But for now: the interrogatories."

Jeff sensed the portion of the conversation where Stone dropped nuggets of secret lore had ended. "Right, right. I'll email them to you as soon as I'm back in my office." He rose, his mind awash.

 _A machine that detects love._

* * *

"Morning, Annie," the guy whose name she didn't know said as she came into Beans 'n Things.

"Yo, el Capitan!" Annie made finger guns at the guy, and immediately regretted it. He didn't seem to have noticed. _That's okay_ , she told herself, _we can come back from that. Think how embarrassing you were with Jeff freshman year. No, don't think that. Don't think about Jeff._

"I wanted to ask you…" The guy trailed off, hesitating, maybe because he'd processed the finger guns thing and changed his mind about wanting to converse with her.

"Small americano, extra shot?" Jeanne the barista asked her, in the ensuing pause. Annie nodded.

The guy hadn't finished announcing whatever it was he'd wanted to ask her about, so after she paid for the drink she jumped in to fill the silence. "This is kind of a random question," she said, "but every day I see you in here and you're clearly doing something, so, what are you doing?"

"Huh, wow." The guy blinked as though she'd disrupted his whole train of thought. "That's kind of a complicated question…"

"I'm sorry?"

"No, no, it's fine." The guy winced. "I'm a biostatistician; I run meta-analyses of drug studies for pharmaceutical companies. Well, for the company that I work for, that the pharmaceutical companies contract with. I really hate the people I work with, so I work from home as much as I can. I only go in in the afternoons, three days a week."

"Oh." Annie raised her eyebrows. "That sounds very… specific."

"Uh, yeah. It's super boring, I know."

"I was going to say that it sounded interesting," she explained, "but then I was like, do I really want to tell a lie this early in the morning?"

He laughed. "Right. You only get so many lies per day, you've got to husband them closely. I totally understand. I always tell the truth, one hundred percent of the time, before I've had my morning coffee. You look great today, by the way. Although, fair warning…" He took a sip of his coffee. "This is my second cup."

Reflexively, Annie glanced at the floor and bobbed her head, the way she'd used to do sometimes when talking to Jeff, the way she hadn't done in a long time. "Well, thank you." She felt obliged to say something more. "I used to be a pharmaceutical rep," she volunteered.

The guy nodded absently.

"But now I work at the FBI," she continued. "No, really," she added, seeing his skeptical expression.

"Sure you do. Agent Annie."

"I do! I'm the very lowest-level employee at the Boston field office downtown. I know I'm the lowest level because it's a federal job and the payscales are all posted online."

"So you make less than the janitors?"

"I don't know about that. The cleaners are outside contractors," Annie said. Sensing she was losing whatever cachet her FBI affiliation might have granted her, she added, "I mostly do stupid paperwork stuff, but one time I handled a piece of evidence."

"Really?"

"Well, a photocopy of a piece of evidence. A receipt."

"Still!" The guy seemed impressed.

"I know, right?" Annie beamed. _See, you can talk to a cute guy who isn't Jeff Winger just as well as anybody._

"Uh, well… excuse me," the guy said suddenly, and rose and dashed into the restroom.

Annie stood there a moment, musing on the interaction.

"Annie," said Jeanne the barista, sliding her coffee towards her.

"Thanks… Actually," she said, turning to Jeanne the barista, "I have a question for you."

The barista sighed. "Yes, it _is_ very cute the way you two flirt for a minute every morning. He didn't used to come in every single weekday, so, thanks for that." She paused. "That wasn't sarcasm; he cleans up after himself and he tips well. So the thanks were real. The part about it being cute was sarcasm."

"Oh, I wasn't…" Annie trailed off. Suddenly she really didn't want to admit to the barista that she didn't know the guy's name. She shook her head. "Never mind. Anyway, thanks."

"I didn't…" Jeanne the barista tilted her head towards the front window. "Your bus is here."

"Aw, crap," muttered Annie. Her bus was, indeed, pulling up to the stop outside the coffee shop. She hurried to catch it.

* * *

Once on the bus she texted Jeff, for the millionth time, at his old number that she knew was disconnected. She knew the messages went undelivered and unread, but still she wrote them.

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 0714:**

 **I miss you way more than you deserve**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **You kept me dangling for so long and I'm mad at you and I still think about you every day**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I meet a cute guy and he's sweet and friendly and I can't help thinking about you the whole time**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **When I am an FBI agent if you haven't shown up I am going to find you I don't care if you don't want to be found**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I will find you and chew you out about it**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **Ew no! Don't be gross Jeff**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I did not mean chewing like nibbling on your earlobe, jeez**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

* * *

"Today I am a yellow-painting dean, a yellow-painting dean, a yellow-painting dean…" Craig Pelton sat at his desk, working on the paperwork Frankie had dropped off that morning. Specifically, his watercolor for the community college's application to continue to be connected to the city of Greendale's electrical grid. Life was, all in all, strangely quiet. Usually at this time in the school year there'd already been several crises, demanding Craig and his friends leap into action to save Greendale, but for once, all was well.

Probably it was a combination of Frankie's skillful management and Craig's own skillful painting-by-numbers.

The yellow portions of the painting complete, he was about to move on to orange when the phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Dean, it's Jeff Winger. I need help."

"Jeffrey!" Craig rose dramatically to his feet, though there was no one there to see it. He would have sat back down, but in rising so quickly he'd knocked his chair down and away. Jeffrey was more important than sitting, anyway. "Jeffrey, where are you? I've been so worried!"

"I'm fine —"

"You just said you needed help! Did you hike the Appalachian Trail? Did you slip and fall on a remote portion of the Appalachian Trail? Are you calling me from the only doctor's office in Sugar Grove, West Virginia?"

"What? No!" Jeffrey sounded irritated. Probably he was drinking again.

Craig clucked his tongue. "Well, mister, with that attitude I'm not sure I want to help you. You left us all in the lurch, you know."

"I'm sure it took Frankie all of forty-five minutes to find someone to teach my classes…"

"Yes, but he got a better offer from the halfway house on Norfolk Street. She had to find a second person and that took the better part of two hours! Do you think Frankie's time is just worthless? What do you have against Frankie, Jeffrey?!"

"Dean. Craig." His tone was more resigned. "I'm sorry I left so abruptly and I'm sorry I haven't been in touch."

"Well." Craig tried to stay angry, but failed. "I accept your apology." He was going to change the subject to something more pleasant, but Jeffrey kept talking.

"It was for the best, though. Maybe not the best for me, or even for Greendale, but the best for…" He sighed. "I'm calling for information."

"Of course, what do you need? Should I call Frankie, or is this about a school dance, or something else in my wheelhouse? Word searches? I've been doing a lot of word searches. For the city. You have to do four word searches to get them to even look at your forms, it's ridiculous."

"It's about Russell Borchert."

"Who?"

"How's Annie doing, do you know?"

"What?"

"Answer the second question first. No, you know what, never mind —"

"She's doing well as far as I know, Jeffrey, but —"

"Forget it!" Jeff barked. "Borchert! Russell Borchert! The man who was living in the basement of the comp sci building, in the computer lab that we found the year before last."

"Oh! 'Borchert, Borchert, loved computers, more than women's butts or hooters,' that guy? Jeffrey, why on Earth do you want to know anything more about him?"

"When we found him, and brought him out of his bunker," Jeffrey said, the barely-concealed irritation back in his voice, "he was the associate dean of the school and had special administrative powers and I don't even know what else. Then I went away for a week and when I got back for the summer session he was gone. This was right before Frankie started working there, so she won't know. You were there. Where did he go? And where did his computer equipment go?"

"Oh." Craig sighed. "Is that all? He quit. Said he'd been offered a position he couldn't refuse, packed his things up, and left. I tried to get him to leave the computer stuff, but he was adamant about taking it. Said it was his personal property, not the school's. I thought, well, it's more out of date than _most_ of the computers in the comp sci department, so small loss…"

"Craig, this is important: where did he go?"

"I don't remember!" Craig threw up his hands. "He left a forwarding address…"

"Yes?"

"But I lost it. This was before Frankie was here," he added defensively. "I was drowning in all those tiny day-to-day things she takes care of now. It doesn't matter; Borchert never got any mail here."

"Craig, do you remember anything about…"

"It was the Eastern time zone, I remember that, because I remember thinking it would be hard to coordinate anything with him on the phone because he was two hours in the future… not that that ended up being a problem."

"Could it have been Boston?"

"Boston?" Craig mouthed the word a couple of times, trying out how it felt in his mouth. "That sounds right. Could be. Why… Jeffrey? Jeffrey, have you hung up on me?" He had, but Craig didn't want to accept that. "Is this a bad connection? Can you hear me? Why are you asking about Boston? Is it because Annie's in Boston? Hello? Jeffrey?"


	6. She's Four Hundred Miles Away

"Morning," the cute guy whose name Annie didn't know who flirted with her every morning said, as she came into Beans 'n Things.

"Hey there, Smiley," Annie replied. The next time she went into Beans 'n Things and he wasn't there, she decided, she would ask the barista what his name was.

While she waited for her order the guy cleared his throat. "The other day you said you were on the outs with your roommate because of a club you used to belong to."

Annie blinked. "Did I?"

"You did. I spent all day yesterday trying to come up with a non-joke explanation, but nothing doing… satisfy my curiosity?"

"Oh. Um." Annie found herself adjusting her hair. _The reason you're nervous is because he's cute and you like him. Okay, you don't, but you_ could _like him, come on!_

The guy leaned back in his seat. "Sorry if it's a personal thing. I was mostly just making conversation."

"No, no, it's fine. It's just kind of an involved story," Annie explained. "The real short version is that we were undergraduates together and my study group, um, monopolized one of the study rooms. And she stabbed one of my friends. With a pencil…. Straight through the cheek."

The guy did a combination half-cough, half-laugh. "Now see," he said, "that just raises further questions."

"I know!" She smiled nervously. "That's why I was like, 'oh dear,' just now."

"Do you have plans for Saturday?" he asked.

Of the possible followup questions she'd been expecting, that had not been one of them. "Do what?"

"See, I got my mother tickets to see Natalie Is Freezing on Saturday night, but it turns out she has a thing planned and can't go. I was going to try to sell the tickets on Craigslist, but then I thought, maybe I could bribe Annie into answering all my further questions about pencil stabbings and study rooms. Then I asked you, and then you looked nonplussed, and then I started to explain, and that brings us up to the present where I don't know what's going to happen next but in my head I'm already working on how to minimize the social embarrassment of the next time I see you after you politely decline which I think you're going to do at the end of this sentence and so I'm stretching the sentence out as much as I can…"

He paused for breath, and Annie couldn't help rescuing him. _You can do this, you can do this._ "See, though, I'm about to say yes. So you don't need to keep that sentence going." _You can do this, you can accept a date from a guy who isn't Jeff Winger. You want to do this. Or okay, you want to believe you can want to do this._ "Yes."

"Oh, good." The guy smiled at her, and she smiled back and it was a whole smiling moment, for a moment. "Uh, can I get your number?"

"Sure," Annie said, and gave it to him.

He gave her his number, and she entered it into her phone, and then she realized that she couldn't just name him 'cute guy from coffee shop' in her phone. Well, she _could_ , but she wouldn't. Then an idea struck her. "How do you spell your name?"

The guy looked at her quizzically. "J-O-E-B-R-O-W-N," he said after a pause. Then he grinned. "You didn't know my name!"

Annie cleared her throat. "I might not have," she admitted.

The guy — Joe — laughed. "I thought you were just weird with the nicknames! Oh, I should have known!"

"Well, you just… I couldn't say I didn't know your name! And you knew my name —"

"You told me your name! I wasn't being creepy!"

"I know!" Annie cried helplessly.

His grin widened. "I told you my name when we first met, and we were talking about Netflix…"

"I knew that you'd said it, but I couldn't remember it, and I kept waiting for it to come up so I wouldn't have to ask…"

This might have gone on forever, had Jeanne the barista not intervened. "Small americano, extra shot," she called, with the tone of someone who had been trying to get Annie's attention for a little while now, and who did not find the Annie 'n Joe Show to be terribly charming. "Also, your bus."

"I have to go or I'll be late for work," Annie said apologetically.

Joe shook his head in wonder. "Well, we can't have that," he said. "I'll see you tomorrow then, Annie… also, my name is Joe!" he called after her as she headed out the door.

* * *

Jeff burst into Stone's office.

"Morning, Jeff," Stone said mildly. He was at his standing desk, drinking coffee.

"Russell Borchert!" Jeff cried.

Stone barely reacted, but Jeff had been ready for it, and saw the merest hint of a grimace flit across his face. "Beg pardon?"

"You heard me, Will," Jeff said. He cleared his throat. "I realize now that coming in here and excitedly announcing the name wasn't the chillest way to handle this."

"You could have emailed," Stone agreed. "Come in and shut the door if we're going to talk about this."

Jeff closed the door and sat down, while Stone shifted to his chair in the corner. "I was thinking about what you said yesterday," Jeff began.

"Man, really?" Stone laughed. "I said a lot of things. I say a lot of things every day." He shrugged. "Come on, Jeff."

"You said yesterday that one of the assets in the Hawthorne estate was a machine that detects love. You could only have meant Borchert's system, because if you didn't then we live in a world where there are two different machines that detect love, and I barely accept the existence of one."

Stone nodded slightly. "Fair enough."

"So where is he?" Jeff asked. "What weird part in Pierce Hawthorne's beyond-the-grave shenanigans could he possibly play, given that when Pierce 'died' Borchert had been missing for decades?"

"Did I hear you put quotation marks around 'died' in that sentence?"

"If anyone I knew would fake his death for laughs, it'd be Pierce Hawthorne."

"We were both at his funeral," Stone pointed out. "It was open casket."

"Like Pierce couldn't afford a wax mannequin!" Jeff considered. "Or he could have hired a guy with a terminal illness to get plastic surgery to look like him, then waited for that guy to die… I'm not accusing Pierce of murder," he assured Stone. "Just a near-fatal lack of common sense."

"Okay," said Stone. "Okay. I can see this is bothering you. You don't sound like yourself."

"Who do I sound like, Jeff Goldblum?" Jeff sputtered.

"Weirdly specific, but, kind of?" Stone snorted. "I assure you everything in the will about Borchert was written long before… let me start over. Borchert's initial research was partially funded by a grant from Hawthorne Labs, their computer and electronics R&D firm…"

" _Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne_ ," Jeff muttered.

"Beg pardon?" Stone asked.

"Pierce's father's will involved a video game. I remember it had hippies attacking… people."

"Oh! _Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne_ , right." Stone chuckled. "I worked on that one, back in the day. Not the game part, the legally-binding estate agreement part… so, so racist." He shook his head. "Like father, like son, am I right?"

"I feel like Pierce would want me to punch you in the face for saying that," Jeff observed genially. "But we were talking about Borchert."

"Hmm, yes. Russell Borchert was on a list of possible candidates to put to work on Operation Infinite Pierce, which…" Stone sucked air in between his teeth. "Something something virtual-reality immortality, something something brain uploaded into a computer system. You've seen movies, right?"

Jeff nodded. "That does sound like something Pierce would go for… so where's Hawthorne Labs now? Their main facility?"

Stone scoffed. "Hawthorne Labs was shut down after completing _Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne_ in 2002. Borchert isn't there."

Jeff looked at him.

"He's at MIT," Stone said. "Someplace called the Trapezoid Building, in the electronic-molecular science department."

"You have his email?"

Stone shook his head. "He doesn't use email or phones. Does all of his meeting face-to-face. I think the years and years he spent alone in a bunker under a community college, building his love-computer? May have made him a little squirrelly."

"If I go to see him," Jeff said. "I'm going to ask him about Pierce. Is he going to say he never met the man, that Pierce was dead by the time he emerged from under Greendale?"

"I assume," Stone said. He leaned forward. "Jeff, you're chasing ghosts. Is this about Pierce Hawthorne, or is it about distracting yourself from something… or someone… else? Annie Edison?"

Jeff made a face. "You've been talking to Mark?"

"I wasn't asking him anything. He's just terrible at keeping secrets," Stone replied. "Not a great trait in a lawyer."

* * *

Jeff didn't normally go out for coffee in the afternoon — he was too health-conscious to disregard his extremely vague understanding that caffeine after lunch was bad for you. But after talking to Stone, he needed to clear his head. The sidewalks outside his office were crowded with people. He wondered, briefly, where they were all going and why — most of them weren't dressed like professionals, but like shoppers or tourists. Better shopping out from the city center, better historic landmarks, too. Maybe they were all actors, hired by Pierce, to keep tabs on him. Maybe this wasn't Boston at all, but a cunning simulacrum operated by Pierce to teach Jeff some kind of dumb-ass lesson.

No. Nonsense. _You're thinking nonsense_ , he told himself. _You're looking for a mystery where there isn't one. You just want to make a caper out of it, an excuse to run around holding hands in the dark with…_

Jeff stopped short and a pair of small Japanese women behind him almost walked into him. No, he told himself. _No._ He glanced around, as though thinking about her might cause her to appear somehow. _She's four hundred miles away. She's being amazing out in the world. She's happier without you_ , he reminded himself.

Better to focus on what he could get his own hands on: proving that Pierce Hawthorne had faked his death and masterminded Jeff's move to Boston out of a sense of misguided competition and a need for control. _Yes,_ he thought sarcastically, _that seems much less crazy than fixating on Annie._

Coffee. Coffee would help.

* * *

Annie was occasionally called upon to go out for coffee in the afternoon — not usually, but sometimes the vagaries of schedules and deadlines put extra pressure on the staff in her office, and her supervisor would attempt to mollify everyone by sending the gofer out for coffee. This was the fourth time it had happened. Usually Annie welcomed the excuse to walk the block and a half downtown, surrounded by people and exotic sights. Today, though, she was distracted by thoughts of the morning and the cute guy whose name she didn't — thoughts of Joe.

This was moving on. This was what moving on looked like. Yes, she did plan on applying to the FBI Academy in three years, and yes that would mean changing cities; and so, yes, maybe it wasn't worth it trying to date in that brief window of time, but… No. Dumb. She was casting around looking for reasons to bail on the whole thing.

 _Jeff made his decision (without consulting me (just like always (you'd think I would have learned before this (but I did learn and that's the important thing)))) and that's that (even if he came crawling back now I have too much self-respect to just take him back (I don't (I can pretend I do (no one needs to know))))._

Her head was spinning. Annie closed her eyes, counted to three, and opened them again. Get it together, she told herself, and stepped into the coffee shop. It's over, she thought.

Then she looked up and saw him, three places ahead of her in line, ordering a latte.


	7. I Can't Trust You to Abandon Me Properly

Annie froze, but only for a half a second. Then she ducked back out of the coffee shop. Around a corner, leaning against a red brick wall, she struggled to control her breathing. Annie felt kicked in the chest; the sight of Jeff Winger, after having resigned herself to not seeing him for months at least, had rung her like a bell. Then the initial shock wore off, and she was angry.

How dare he! Annie had gone two thousand miles, and he'd what, followed her? After she'd made an effort to talk to him like a grown-up or a moderately mature middle-school student, and he'd fled without even trying to reconcile. After a summer they'd spent in daily contact, after that good-bye kiss and look that had stirred up a nest of feelings they'd never quite managed to get around to discussing, after a year — a full year, almost to the day — since he'd announced an engagement to Britta and Annie had finally accepted that nothing between them was ever going to happen, after three years of gingerly dancing around one another, after two years of him inconsistently jerking her around…

It had been over. She had accepted that it had been over — she'd accepted it twice, in fact. It hadn't taken the first time, she'd thought it had, but… it had been over. She'd been free.

It was over. She was free.

There wasn't going to be a third time.

She whipped out her phone.

 **ANNIE to BRITTA, 1512:**

 **What the hell, Britta? [Crazy frown emoji]**

 **ANNIE to FRANKIE, 1512:**

 **Did you know about this?! [Crazy frown emoji]**

 **ANNIE to ABED, 1512:**

 **Tell me you didn't tell him this was a good idea! [Crazy frown emoji]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1513:**

 **I cannot believe you**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **You say one thing and you do another**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **And you'd think I would have learned by now**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **But apparently I can't even trust you to abandon me properly**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

While she waited for someone to respond, Annie took a deep breath. She risked peeking around the corner at the coffee shop's exterior. No Jeff Winger standing on the sidewalk or advancing on her. No Jeff Winger still in the coffee shop, either, from what she could see. He'd probably gone back to his secret listening post across the street from her apartment. Oh my God, she thought, Vicki was right.

 **FRANKIE to ANNIE, 1516:**

 **You're going to have to be more specific. In the absence of detail, I cannot tell you whether 'this' is something I knew about. However I suspect the answer is no, because whatever 'this' is, it's something that upsets you, and which you would have preferred I tell you about, if I knew about it. I can't immediately think of anything that I know, that fits those criteria. I hope this helps.**

 **ANNIE to FRANKIE, 1517:**

 **Jeff is in Boston [head exploding emoji]**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1518:**

 **He didn't now**

 **FRANKIE to ANNIE, 1519:**

 **That is an excellent example of something that, if I had been aware of it, I would have told you. I have been apprised through secondary sources about Jeff's panicked flight from Greendale; he declined to bid me farewell in person. Though I was disappointed by him in that respect, I can understand the decision. At least to an extent: if I were to take it upon me to flee abruptly from this town, I would prefer to tell Jeff farewell in person but I wouldn't make it a priority, compared to saying good-bye to closer friends. Although, now that I think about it, Jeff actually was one of the closest friends I had at Greendale, as of his disappearance. I would consider you and Abed both to be closer friends, but neither of you are actually here any longer, and were already gone by the point at which Jeff left. Have you consulted Abed? He (or Britta) would probably be the most likely person to know Jeff's current whereabouts.**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1520:**

 **He doesn't no**

 **He doesn't know**

 **Dammit**

 **FRANKIE to ANNIE, 1520:**

 **Though it occurs to me that, as you're already learned of Jeff's current location, consulting Abed (or Britta) is probably unnecessary. Let me know if there's anything specific I can do for you; your choice of emoticons strongly implies you're upset. It may be presumptuous of me to suggest a cup of chamomile tea.**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1521:**

 **He thinks ur in DC**

 **FRANKIE to ANNIE, 1522:**

 **Rest assured I am entirely at your disposal, in whatever capacity I can help you. Let me know.**

 **ABED to ANNIE, 1523:**

 **Is this about Troy's new haircut?**

 **ANNIE to BRITTA, 1525:**

 **Then what's he doing here?**

 **ANNIE to FRANKIE, 1525:**

 **Thank you, Frankie.**

 **I might need you to murder Britta for me. I'm not sure yet.**

 **ANNIE to ABED, 1525:**

 **Troy has a new haircut?**

 **ABED to ANNIE, 1526:**

 **[IMAGE ATTACHED CLICK TO OPEN]**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1526:**

 **He has a lawyer job there**

 **He hasn't piqued at social media**

 **Peaked**

 **Peeked**

 **He thinks your job is in DC**

 **ANNIE to BRITTA, 1527:**

 **So you're talking to him?**

 **FRANKIE to ANNIE, 1529:**

 **While I'm sure you have your reasons, violence is rarely the solution. It's possible that I'm misunderstanding the situation, but if there are no mitigating factors I'm unaware of, I'm afraid I can't participate in murdering Britta. I suggest discussion. If diplomacy fails we can consider other options. Also, text messaging is vulnerable to surveillance, subpoena, and seizure, and is admissible in court as evidence; it's thus now doubly inadvisable to murder Britta as ECHELON and the NSA have no doubt already intercepted this conversation. To sum up: I hope you are making a very funny joke.**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1530:**

 **He called me last week with his new number and he said where he was**

 **I was going to tell you**

 **I forgot**

 **Sorrow**

 **Sorry**

 **I'll send you his number**

 **ANNIE to BRITTA, 1531:**

 **Don't!**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1531:**

 **6175551123**

 **Sorrow I didn't see your message**

 **ANNIE to BRITTA, 1532:**

 **It's ok**

 **Thanks for not telling him I'm here**

 **ANNIE to FRANKIE, 1532:**

 **Ha ha! [Nervous laughter emoji] [blush emoji] [nervous laughter emoji] [HA HA emoji]**

 **BRITTA to ANNIE, 1533:**

 **What are you going to do?**

 **ANNIE to BRITTA, 1534:**

 **I don't know yet**

 **FRANKIE to ANNIE, 1535:**

 **I'm glad we had this discussion about your wholly fictive interest in contract killing. However I note we are getting away from the topic at hand, which I understand to be the current whereabouts of Jeff Winger. I'm sufficiently ignorant of context as to be unable to volunteer specific advice or assistance. Rest assured I am standing by, at the ready, to aid you however I can. My offered assistance extends beyond the polite minimum; if it were necessary for your purposes, I would willingly expend vacation days. You are a person I value.**

 **ANNIE to FRANKIE, 1537:**

 **Thank you Frankie [smiling emoji]!**

 **I'll call you later**

 **ABED to ANNIE, 1538:**

 **Are you not upset about Troy's new haircut?**

 **It's a terrible haircut.**

* * *

MIT was more mazelike than Jeff had expected, but only slightly. He took the subway across the river to Cambridge wandered into the campus in search of 'the Trapezoid Building.' One building was in the shape of a triangle. Another was long and thin and appeared from the outside to consist entirely of glassed-in hallways that served no purpose beyond blocking pedestrian access from one side of it to the other. It took Jeff about ten minutes to give up on self-navigating to the point of pulling up a campus map on his phone, which helped but didn't solve all his problems. He passed the same bare courtyard with rusting lawn furniture three times before he found the only building that, according to his phone, was trapezoidal in shape, nestled among some disused tennis courts.

Circling the building, he could confirm its trapezoidal nature. At this point, he faced a new problem: five different sets of doors in, all of which were various kinds of locked. Two of the three were, in fact, chained shut, and the other three were bare panes of metal, with no exterior knobs, locks, or handles, and signs saying NO ACCESS. There were some windows that looked in to classrooms, which while unoccupied didn't seem abandoned, so…

"You look," said someone behind him, "like you want to get into the Trapezoid."

Jeff turned away from the window. A small redheaded woman was smiling at him, a little smugly, with her arms folded. Jeans and sweatshirt and backpack meant too casual to be faculty, but she was definitely older than a typical college student.

"Yeah," Jeff said, straightening up a little. "Is it an intelligence test, or something?"

She gave a little half-shrug. "You have to take a tunnel." The woman pointed to one of the non-trapezoidal buildings on the other side of the tennis courts. "There's one under the tennis courts. You can get in over there."

Jeff tried to look charmingly bemused rather than how he felt, which was frustrated. "Probably a dumb question, but why?"

"I have no idea. Maybe it used to be a security thing, maybe it's some kind of prank that's lasted. It's been like that the whole time I've been here, though." She cocked her head at him. "You obviously need an escort in."

"Well, if you happen to be going that way…"

"I could be," she said, as if mulling it over.

Jeff forced a chuckle. "I'd be grateful," he said. "I'm looking for Russell Borchert."

"Oh yeah?" The woman sounded surprised. She turned towards the building she'd pointed to, indicating he should follow. "I didn't think he knew anybody. He was in a bunker for thirty years, supposedly."

Jeff smiled to himself. "My name's Jeff Winger," he said. "I'm the guy who found him."

The woman did a double take and her face lit up. "You're the guy from the bunker?"

"So you do know him?"

She nodded dismissively. "Yeah, I'm a postdoc in the Spence lab down the hall from him… Linda Kleiman."

"Well, thanks for taking pity on me, Linda," Jeff said. "I don't know what I would have done…"

"You should have emailed Russ, he'd have given you directions."

Jeff bristled a bit at her imperious tone. "He just said the top floor of the Trapezoid Building. I don't have his email."

"Well then… are you visiting from Colorado? It was Colorado, wasn't it?" She winced. "Shit, was it Nebraska? Did I say something offensive? Is it super rude to get middle-of-the-country states mixed up?"

"It's fine. It was Colorado. And no, I moved here last month. I'm an attorney downtown. I didn't know Borchert was here until he contacted me."

"Wow, okay. So, tell me, Jeff, is it true that…" Linda considered. "I'm not sure which part of Russ's story is the least plausible."

"Oh, it's all pretty unlikely," Jeff assured her. "And it did all happen. A bunch of really unlikely things happened, one right after the other. It's possible the unlikely things he told you were different from the unlikely things that happened; I can't vouch for them without knowing what he said."

As they chatted, Linda led Jeff into a nearby building, with cracked linoleum floors. She took him through two unlabeled doors, and down a flight of stairs to a wide cement tunnel. "It's this way," she said as she brought him down the tunnel, passing a sign with an arrow designating the way to BUILDING A20.

"A20 is the Trapezoid?"

"Hmm? Yeah… here we are." She came to a halt at yet another unlabelled door, which turned out to conceal an elevator. An unexpectedly small elevator… "It's a little tight, be careful," she warned as she stepped inside.

A heavy padded curtain lined the small box of the elevator. Jeff pressed against it, trying to stay out of Linda's personal space as best he could. She was making no corresponding attempt to keep away from him, he noted without pleasure.

As the elevator ascended, it made a noise like a quacking duck, which Linda ignored. "I'd love to hear about the actual unlikely things that happened," she said. "Russ's story kind of makes no sense in places, and he doesn't like questions…"

Jeff grunted noncommittally; he didn't want to encourage her. They lapsed into silence for the rest of the ride up.

The elevator door opened, six stories up, and Linda slipped out into a high airy hallway. "Russ's office is down there," she said.

"Thanks," Jeff said with a nod.

Linda looked at him expectantly for a moment, while Jeff tried to pretend he didn't realize she was waiting for him to ask her out. Then she spoke. "You don't have Russ's email, so, what's yours?"

A vague sense of obligation led Jeff to give her his work email. She smiled, took out her phone, and jabbed at it for a few seconds. His phone buzzed.

"Now you have my email," she said brightly. "In case you get lost again."

"Heh, thanks…"

"My only request is that you tell me the straight dope on the whole bunker thing." She pointed at him. "You hear me?" she asked, her tone full of mock scolding.

He nodded. "Absolutely. I'll email you."

"You'd better, Jeff." She smiled at him before turning and walking the other way.

She certainly was friendly, Jeff thought. Wasn't that the kind of thing — an attractive, at least loosely age-appropriate, and not very subtle woman expressing interest — wasn't that what he was supposed to want? Annie was hundreds of miles away and off the table, so…? He sighed, unable to convince himself for even an instant that he had any interest in Linda Kleiman.

* * *

"So I say to Mabel, I say — I'll finish this later, Annie just got home." Vicki glanced up from the laptop on the coffee table as Annie came in with an armload of groceries.

"Say hi to her for me." Neil's voice sounded oddly tinny as it emanated from the laptop's small speakers.

"Hi Neil!" Annie called as she passed through the living room to the apartment's kitchen.

"Neil says hi," Vicki announced.

If this had happened during her first or second week of living with Vicki, Annie probably would have tried to explain that she'd heard Neil perfectly well. But after nearly a month of close cohabitation, Annie knew that the best thing to do was just nod and continue on into the kitchen.

"Ask her," Neil suggested. From context Annie guessed the instruction was intended for Vicki and she was the object.

"I'm doing it, okay?" Vicki stage-whispered. She cleared her throat and turned towards the kitchen. "Annie! Hi! How's it going?"

"Fine," Annie said cautiously, her back to Vicki as she opened a cupboard and began transferring cans from her bag. "I'm putting away groceries."

"That's great. Do you have Jeff's contact information yet?"

Annie spun around, shocked. "What?"

"Because Neil loaned him a first edition of Deities & Demigods, with the Lovecraftian pantheon included? And we just found out that it's worth money if it's in decent shape, and it was in decent shape when he gave it to him, so… are you okay?" Vicki's voice rose higher and higher over the course of the sentence. She leaned forward, peering at Annie. "Jeez, you just went white as a sheet."

"She blanched?" Neil asked.

"That is what I said. I've never seen… okay." Vicki sprang up off the couch and walked the four steps or so to where Annie was standing.

"What?" Annie asked, or tried to, as the kitchen floor buckled under her.

"Here we go, back to the couch…" Vicki seemed to have sea legs. She supported Annie as she led her to the couch. When she released Annie, she tumbled down and landed heavily in front of the laptop.

"Are you okay?" Neil asked her.

"I'm fine," Annie said, or rather, she tried to say — speaking a whole sentence like that seemed like an awful lot of trouble. Neil and Vicki said some more things, but Annie didn't bother listening to them; she was too busy focusing on not falling off the couch.

Then there was a glass of water in her hand, and Vicki was sitting next to her, holding the bottom of the water and guiding it to her lips. As she drank the water, Annie began to feel better.

"I knew Jeff was a sore spot," Vicki said, "but wow, you looked like you were going to faint."

"I'm okay," Annie said.

"She even faints like a princess," Vicki told Neil.

"Is she okay? I can't really see," Neil said.

"I'm okay," Annie said again. "I just got Jeff's new number today, is the… anyway, yeah. I can give you his number, Neil."

"Finish that water," Vicki ordered. "And I'm going to make you some toast." She stared at Annie until Annie nodded weakly, then nodded to Neil on the screen of the laptop and rose.

"Uh. I figure it's a long shot that he still has it. I know he wasn't all that into gaming…" Neil trailed off. "Uh, are you not eating food, or something?"

"I'm okay, I'm okay, it's just been a stressful day."

"You've got to do at least minimal self-care, you know?" On the laptop screen Neil looked concerned. He and Annie sat in telepresent silence for a few moments. "Vicki told me about you and Jeff."

"She did?" Annie swallowed the last of the water.

"I didn't tell him anything!" Vicki called from the kitchen.

"She told me a little," Neil said. "She said you two had broken up —"

Annie shook her head no. "We weren't —"

"They weren't together, Neil, Jesus! I told you that!"

"Right, right. You aren't talking to him, I meant. I knew that. That's got to be rough, man. The gaming book isn't really important, if this is a sore spot…"

Annie closed her eyes and debated whether to tell them. "I saw Jeff today, actually. Like, an hour ago. He's in the city. He didn't follow me here," she added quickly. "He thinks my job is in DC apparently. He didn't see me. He was at the coffee shop by the FBI office, and I saw him. He doesn't know I'm here."

"Whoa," said Neil.

Vicki emerged from the kitchen. In her hands was a plate bearing two lightly toasted slices of bread, with something brown and syrupy spread on them. "Vegemite," she announced. She offered the plate to Annie, expression oddly intent.

Annie looked at the toast, and at Vicki, and at the toast again. It smelled of apples. Reluctantly she picked up one of the slices, and took a bite. It tasted like apples… "This isn't Vegemite, is it?"

"It's apple butter. But you thought it was Vegemite and you took some anyway! Good for you!" Vicki set the plate down on the coffee table, next to the laptop. "You can handle that, you can handle anything!"

"Um…"

"Have you ever had Vegemite? It's disgusting. Garbage," Vicki said scornfully as she sat back down on the couch. "Garbage people eat it."

"…Thanks?" Annie took another bite of toast. "You don't seem surprised to hear Jeff is here," she said with her mouth full.

Vicki snorted. "Obviously. I knew he was here. Your stupid not-boyfriend wouldn't let you move to a new city without stalking you about it." She picked up the second slice of toast. "I told you that. Are you sure he doesn't know you're here?"

"Pretty sure…"

"It won't last. Someone will tell him, or he'll spot you in a coffee shop the way you spotted him, or you'll break down and call him, or something." Vicki gestured towards Neil. "Tell her I'm right."

"Hmm. Maybe," Neil said. "I don't, uh, I don't really know."

"Well, I know," Vicki said confidently. "And if she can handle Vegemite, she can handle Jeff Winger trying to weasel his way back into her life."

"This isn't actually Vegemite, though…"

"But you didn't know that! You're fearless!"


	8. I'm Probably Not Going to See Him Again

"Hello? Doctor Borchert? Russell?" Jeff called as he moved from room to room. This whole end of the fifth floor was a set of connected labs and workrooms. Electronic components, cables, and nondescript beige boxes littered countertops. A sun-faded calendar nailed to one wall claimed the current month was June of 1994. There was no response, so Jeff called out again. "You've managed to pretty much recreate your bunker, I see…"

"What's that?" A middle-aged man several inches shorter than Jeff suddenly emerged from behind a wall. It took Jeff a moment to realize it was Borchert — he looked completely different without all that hair. He might not have recognized Borchert at all, had the man's face not lit up on seeing him. "Jeff Winger! The love bomb himself! Precisely the man I wanted — what good fortune is this? The only other man Raquel ever responded to!" Borchert closed the distance between them and grasped Jeff by the lapels of his suit in a gesture that might have been threatening but for the broad grin. "You look well. You're very welcome in my lab!"

"Thanks," Jeff said hesitantly. "It took a little bit of digging to find you. This department's web page hasn't been updated since 2002."

"Bah! Internet. Inter-not, I say!" Borchert chortled. "Come, come, we have much to do!" He tugged at Jeff's sleeve, gesturing towards the doorway he'd entered through.

"I just wanted to ask you about Pierce Hawthorne," Jeff began.

"Not important! Nothing is important next to Scarlett!" Borchert turned to smile at Jeff in a way probably intended to reassure. "That's a lovely suit, by the way. I need you to take it off."

"What? I'm not…" Jeff let himself be led into the next room, but his goodwill only went so far. "Who's Scarlett? How did you get here?"

"Who's Scarlett, he asks!" Borchert laughed to himself. "This is Scarlett!" He gestured to an unimpressive heap of components wired together and spread across several racks on a table. "More than five hundred times the flops! Thirty-two _thousand_ times as many words of memory as Raquel!"

"Named after Scarlett Johansson, I'm guessing?" Jeff asked.

"I really liked _Her_." Borchert beamed. "Did you see that? A whole movie about a man and his computer! What a glorious and nonjudgemental future I've come to! Now get over here," he said, holding up some kind of large vise-like device studded with electrodes, "I need to clamp this to your spine."

"Whoa!" Jeff put his hands up in a 'stop' motion. "That's a no-go. There's no chance I'm going to end up sealed in this lab forever, so I'm exercising my right to refuse."

"Oh!" Borchert sighed petulantly. "But… but _science_ , Jeff!"

Jeff sighed. "You sealed yourself away from the world for more than thirty years. Believe me, I have a lot of respect for you. It takes a lot of strength to push away temptation like that. But Dr. Borchert, sir…"

"You can call me Russ," Borchert said, "if you let me clamp your spiii-iiine…" The last word was delivered in a cajoling singsong. He shook the vise hopefully.

"Dr. Borchert," Jeff repeated, "I respect and admire your devotion to your work. But I'm here for another reason."

"Well, what is it?"

"Pierce Hawthorne," Jeff said again. "And how you got from Greendale to… here." He gestured around the room. "I'm guessing MIT doesn't just let scientists come in from the street to camp in their unused office spaces."

"Oh, that," Borchert said dismissively. "It's… hold on." A crafty expression crossed his face. "Russ, you're a genius! Bait the hook and then tell him about Hawthorne after he's already clamped!"

"Did you mean to say that out loud?"

"What?" Borchert's face fell. "Did I say that out loud? I'm sorry. I was alone for a long time, and there was no need to self-censor. I could just wear what I wanted, sleep where I wanted, hoot like a monkey for a weekend if the fancy struck…"

"You have something to tell me about Hawthorne," Jeff insisted. He flashed back, unwillingly, to the half-dozen times he and Annie had investigated some implausible caper together. This would have been much more fun if she were there, but she wasn't and that was what he'd wanted, so… He blinked, refusing to allow himself to go into an emotional reverie. "Tell me. Please."

"Clamp first," said Borchert. "Don't worry, it won't hurt. Were you worried it would hurt? Should I have called it something other than a clamp?"

"It's not a big plus." Jeff loosened his tie and started to take off his jacket. "If I do this, will you answer my questions?"

"Absolutely! Quid pro quo," Borchert declared. He pulled something on the vise in his hands, and it spread outward, opening into a jointed rod. "Now hold still, because if I get this crooked it'll mess up the results, and your shirt, and maybe your back…"

Jeff was beginning to regret it already. He gritted his teeth and Borchert pressed the rod against his upper back, securing it against his shirt via some method Jeff couldn't see.

"There we are… good!" Borchert circled around Jeff and moved to a nearby terminal. "Now to calibrate Scarlett we need to ask you a series of questions about your romantic history…"

Jeff _really_ regretted it already. "I didn't agree to that —"

"Oh, don't worry." Borchert, typing into the terminal, waved away his concerns. "You don't need to answer the questions. It's like — have you seen _Blade Runner_?" He spun around. "Brilliant movie about a man in love with an artificially created woman?"

"Have you spent the whole time you've been out of the bunker getting caught up on movies?" Jeff asked.

"Only the ones about relationships between men and artificial women. Like, oh, anything with…" He trailed off. "Who's an actress known for having a lot of plastic surgery? Like the modern Candy Rialson? Never mind, never mind, I was trying to make a joke… I was saying you don't need to answer the questions, it's like the Voight-Kampff test in _Blade Runner_ ; Scarlett will measure your autonomic responses to the questions. We take that response and generate more questions, until Scarlett has your number. You mostly prefer women, am I right?"

"What?"

"That wasn't part of the calibration. In this crazy-permissive future era everybody is weirdly progressive on gay rights. Weirdly regressive about a lot of other things. Not important at the moment. Tell me — this is part of the calibration now — why aren't you with the woman you love?"

Jeff reeled. The memory of Annie was suddenly overwhelming. Annie smiling, Annie cross, Annie asking _since when do Human Beings decide which dreams are worthwhile?_

"How did you feel the last time you saw her? Was the last wedding you attended a joyous occasion or did you think the marriage was doomed?" Borchert's questions came rapid-fire. His back was to Jeff, and he was peering intently at the terminal screen. "When you look back at how you've spent the last five years, what are you most ashamed of? Picture the woman you love. What do you love most about her? What's the thing you like the least about her? If I told you you would never see her again, how would you feel? If I told you she was in the next room, reading your subconsciously-projected answers to all these questions on a screen, how would you feel? If I told you I was her in disguise, how implausible would you rate that on a scale of 1 to 3?"

"Uh…"

Borchert turned and looked Jeff in the eye. "More seriously. She doesn't love you. She's moved on. She's happy without you. Are you okay with that?"

"I don't… you…" Jeff sputtered. He felt himself start sweating.

A green LED lit up on one of the beige boxes. "And we're done!" cried Borchert. "You can take the clamp off now."

Hurriedly Jeff pulled off the contraption, wincing as he heard a scratching sound tearing it from his back — had it caught a thread and ripped his shirt? He tried to feel for a tear. "What the hell?" His breathing was heavy.

"Scarlett's very persnickety," Borchert explained. "She needs a lot of data to mull over before she comes to a conclusion. We'll need to process this data and set up the calibration. Should be done by, oh, day after tomorrow. There a good day next week you can come in for the actual interview?"

"I'm not… Dr. Borchert —"

"Call me Russ!"

"Russ!" Jeff cried. "I wore your stupid back brace, are you going to answer my questions now or are you going to jerk me around some more?"

"Oh, Jeff, don't be that way," Borchert cooed. "I was on my own for such a long time —"

"Right, right," grumbled Jeff. "Decades in the bunker. You said. Tell me about Pierce Hawthorne. When did you meet him?"

"Oh, we've never met." Borchert pointed to a doorway. "You want to sit down in my office? I've got some Mr Pibb in there. You know they still make Mr Pibb? I was so relieved…"

"No, no, no. I don't want any Mr Pibb," Jeff snapped. "If you never met Pierce Hawthorne, what did you do with him?"

"We were in business together for about ten minutes right before I went into the bunker. There was this idea to use CB radio to let computers talk to one another… nothing came of it." He shrugged. "Long time ago, obviously. Before we knew Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father! Did you know Darth Vader was Luke Skywalker's father?"

"I did, yeah. What about more recently? Anything since we got you out of the bunker?"

"No, no. I spoke to his lawyer a few times — he arranged my current sinecure here in the Trapezoid Building. Hawthorne's in Paris, now, I think."

Jeff perked up. "Paris?"

Borchert winced. "No, my mistake. He _perished_ , that's what it was. He perished. I have the number for his lawyers somewhere, or I guess his estate's lawyers, he had a different firm back in the '70s… Biddle Heath. I remember the name because it's so stupid." He chuckled to himself. "Biddle Heath, what is that? Anyway… what brings you out here to Boston, Jeff?"

"I'm an attorney at Biddle Heath," Jeff said with a sigh. "I don't understand it any more than you do.

* * *

At ten that night, as promised, Annie called Frankie.

"Hello Annie, what do you need?" Frankie's tone was businesslike.

"Um…" Annie didn't have a ready answer for that one. "I don't know. Thanks for texting me this afternoon, that was really sweet."

"It probably goes without saying but I meant every word. Can you hold on one second while I switch to my bluetooth headset?"

"Sure." Annie lay on her bed and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.

"Great, much better. I'm at a Wal-Mart on the far side of Denver shopping for coloring and rainy-day activity books," Frankie explained. "For Craig."

"Ah," said Annie, understanding immediately. "That sounds like an important job."

"Oh, it is! You have to hit the right middle ground between sufficiently time-consuming so that he'll be occupied long enough, and not so difficult as to lead to frustration and tantrums. The World's Easiest Crossword Puzzles were a big misfire. Now I mix in word searches; that's worked well so far… the thing is, he's a very stupid man. Sweet, but stupid."

"I know."

"I would never say that to his face. Not again, anyway. But he makes terrible choices when he's left unsupervised, like approving a foreign-language course in Pig Latin, or repainting the cafeteria in colors he deems appropriate to the theme of that week's festivities, or buying magic beans from a traveling salesman because he thinks they're good workshop materials for a class in legume horticulture that the traveling salesman tricked him into thinking we were already offering. These examples are specific because they draw on my personal experiences."

"Uh huh."

"But he's a good man and ever since he came out, first as gay and then as political, firing him has just been completely off the table. And it's not like we pay him very much… I'm holding two activity books. Do you think he'd prefer _Frozen_ or a more inclusive Disney princesses theme?"

"Why not get both?"

"Hmm, good idea… I'm sorry, listen to me yammering on about what happens to be in front of me. You seemed upset when you texted me earlier. I spoke with Britta and she eventually explained some of the context."

"Yeah, I mean, it's not a big deal," Annie claimed. "This is a big city and just because I bumped into him once doesn't mean it'll ever happen again."

"Well, obviously I don't recommend confronting him," Frankie said. "Jeff Winger is, and I say this with at least as much affection as my earlier statements about Craig, an emotional mess and your relationship with him bristled with codependence."

Annie sighed. "You didn't know him before…"

"Before what, exactly? Again, extrapolating from what I've gleaned through conversation with Britta, he seems to have always been the same heavy-drinking, self-centered, lazy…" Frankie cleared her throat. "Again, let me stress, I say all of this with affection."

"That's… you're not wrong, exactly, but that's ignoring a whole… Jeff's better than that. He's been through a rough year. Our friend Pierce died, and then our friend Troy left, and then he turned forty, and then…" Annie sighed, remembering that terrible day. "And then Shirley moved to Georgia. This was all before you met him. He's been in a bad way. But really, he's smart and funny and he pretends he's not generous…"

"I really didn't see very much evidence of that in the time I knew him," Frankie interrupted. "Bitter, closed-off, easily enraged: these are the traits I would ascribe to him."

"See, though, a year ago, there was…" Annie tried to think how to explain it. "You know about Borchert, right?"

"The Greendale board attempted to sell the campus to Subway, but you and Abed and some of your friends dug up the school's founder to prevent the sale." Frankie paused before continuing. "Also there was a magic door, which I don't claim to understand but you must realize I've been told the story by Britta and Craig, who aren't very reliable."

"Jeff and Britta were engaged at the time," Annie said.

There was no response from Frankie.

"Hello?"

"That doesn't make any sense," Frankie said. "Jeff Winger and Britta Perry? I don't see it."

"I know, right?" Annie asked breathlessly. "I mean," she continued, calming down, "up to that point Jeff and I… we weren't _together_ , but we'd had this whole _thing_ …"

"Mmm-hmm." Frankie sounded skeptical.

"And that kind of broke it… and that kind of broke Jeff… and… the Jeff Winger you know isn't the real Jeff Winger," she told Frankie firmly.

"People do change —"

"We'd started texting again," Annie said, more wistfully than she meant to. "Texting or talking almost every day. I'd forgotten how much I missed that. And then he up and vanished because he didn't want… I think he didn't want me to leave him again, for good this time. So he left me first."

"Which, I would argue, speaks directly to the toxic nature of the relationship —"

"I know, and that's kind of true, but… there's a lot more going on that you never saw. Jeff and I are —" Her voice caught. " _Were_ , we _were_ close — in a way that I don't think either of us have ever been with anybody else."

Frankie, on the other end of the line, was silent for several seconds. "Annie, can I be frank?" she asked, finally.

"Of course."

"You know I care deeply about you and wish you only joy and happiness," Frankie said, her tone serious. "What I'm hearing from you now distresses me. Your ready defense of Jeff and the obvious emotional depths this conversation is stirring in you together suggest that you will, sooner or later, welcome him back into your life with open arms and closed eyes."

"Frankie, I haven't decided anything…"

"To be honest, at the moment I fear that by broaching this topic with you and attempting to warn you away from him, I've merely galvanized your ardor. You say I don't know the real Jeff Winger; I say I've known him for a year. I've known him as he is now, not as he was years ago. And I say fervently that he is wrong for you."

"You don't… I respect your opinion, but you don't…" Annie sighed. Frankie Dart was a smart woman, but she wasn't exactly an expert on matters of the heart.

"I respect your opinion, too!" Frankie assured her. "I realize I don't necessarily have full access to the facts of the matter. I realize you think my characterization of Jeff Winger is overly harsh. And, again, your endorsement carries a lot of weight with me. You've known him longer than I have. But I ask you to recall that on most other topics you consider me a reliable advisor. I have a perspective that is more dispassionate than yours, on this issue. I hope that you bear this in mind in the future. Please, Annie. That's all I ask."

"I haven't… I'm probably not even going to see him again."

"If you do, try to remember what I've said and at least look at him and your situation with clear eyes."

"Okay."

"And when, sorry, _if_ he hurts you again please, please, please don't hesitate to call me. I promise I will not say anything remotely like 'I told you so.' "

"Frankie…"

"I might be wrong. I hope I am! But I don't think I am," Frankie said. "It's much like my position on climate change."


	9. We Make a Great Team

Jeff walked over the bridge from MIT towards his office, and mulled over his next move. He had a client meeting the next morning, but the rest of his day was free, so he didn't hurry. It wasn't that long a walk, anyhow; everything was right on top of everything in Boston, compared to Greendale.

Rather than talk to himself like a crazy man, he called Mark.

"What's up, Jeff? You want to grab some lunch? There's a Thai place I haven't taken you to, they do a killer larb gai —"

"Nah, I'm out of the office. Just finished talking to Russ Borchert at MIT. Very friendly. Still weird… it's sort of like Greendale follows me wherever I go…"

"Greendale?" Mark asked, perplexed. "Oh, you mean the school, not the town."

"Yeah. No new info about Pierce."

"Greendale probably wouldn't follow you so much if you didn't spend so much time thinking about it. And about the people from it. And by people I mean, dot dot dot." Mark paused. "I mean Annie."

"Oh, not you too," Jeff complained. "Borchert was asking about her… listen, talk to me about something that isn't this."

"Okay, buddy." Mark cleared his throat. "Apropos of nothing I was pricing apartments within commuting distance of the J Edgar Hoover Building. You know it's surprisingly expensive, but…"

"Cash!"

"Fine, fine. New case. You ready for this?"

"Absolutely." He needed something else to think about.

"Let me tell you a story — the best kind of story, a tale of two corporate entities and a regulatory agency."

"Everybody's favorite," agreed Jeff gamely.

"The FCC controls licenses for the wireless spectrum, as you know," Mark continued. "Radio waves. Wireless bandwidth. Cell phones, GPS, FM and AM radio, shortwave, broadcast television, wifi, they all broadcast at particular frequencies, right? And no two things can broadcast at the same frequency, or they interfere with one another. So the government assigns portions of the spectrum, selling some of it at auction, setting some of it aside for military use, and so on. Or technically they auction or sell licenses for monopoly use of portions of the spectrum."

"With you so far," Jeff said.

"One technology company, Via, owns the license for a chunk of the spectrum. Another technology company, Interslice, wants to buy it off them. Via's never done anything with it since they bought the license so they're happy to sell. Interslice, the villains of our little parable, are claiming that they should be able to buy it discounted because the FCC put a restriction on uses of that portion of the spectrum that might interfere with the GPS satellites. They've lobbied the FCC to rescind Via's license so they can pick it up for a song, which is obvious hanky-panky, and worse than that, they've conned a group of poor, undeserving-of-this-treatment Via's shareholders to file suit against the Via board, claiming that the board's refusal to just roll over and accept Interslice's lowball bid was a breach of all the usual things minority shareholders claim breaches of.

"So our client is fighting off a shareholder lawsuit, an insultingly low bid from Interslice, and the FCC breathing down our necks. Into that breach step the heroic warrior-poets of Biddle Heath!"

"This might be a little outside our wheelhouse," Jeff observed. "It sounds very complicated and also very nerdy. Does the Via CEO have a son in a frat who accidentally bought some cocaine thinking it was powdered sugar? That's more in my line."

"I don't know. I mean, you're right, this isn't our usual bag," Mark admitted. "Will brought it in; I think he did some work for Via last year. But we're getting some hired guns on it, corporate litigation specialists."

"Will Stone originated the case?" Something in Mark's description rang a bell in Jeff's head.

"Yeah, yeah. So I need you to go down to Delaware and meet our new co-counsel next week. And you know…." Mark's tone turned cajoling. "It's only two stops on Amtrak from Wilmington to DC…"

"Mark," Jeff said urgently. "What's the full name of our client?"

"What? Uh… hold on… 'Via Laser Lotus Telecommunications, LLC.' Man, Will picked the least interesting part of the name to shorten with. I'm totally calling our side Laser Lotus… Why do you ask?"

"Is the CEO's name… uh…" Jeff concentrated for a moment. A hawthorn was a tree… "Is it Alder or anything like that? Oak, or Willow, or…"

"It's Ryan Boothe, with an E at the end. Why, he again asked his friend politely, do you want to know?" A slight edge had crept into Mark's tone, belying his genial self-narration.

"No reason," said Jeff. "Listen, I'm not going to make it back to the office this afternoon. Email me everything and I'll read it at home, all right?"

"…Sure," Mark said cautiously. "Listen, I'll lay off the DC talk, I can tell it's bugging you."

"Thanks. I mean… thanks."

"You sure you don't want to grab a late lunch?"

"Yeah, sorry. I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

Rather than head back to the office Jeff took a right and wandered into the botanical garden. He wasn't sure whether it was technically part of Boston Common,, or not — he sort of hoped it was, as the stretch of park called the Common had otherwise been surprisingly unimpressive. The garden at least had the swan boats. He took a footpath down towards the water, where there was a view of the boat dock.

Jeff imagined Annie walking beside him, bundled against the crisp fall air, smiling at the sunlight and the leaves that hadn't yet changed and all the people walking dogs. He wondered, not for the first time that day, what she'd have said if she were there.

You should move on, too. You should ask out that girl Linda.

"I don't want to ask out that girl Linda," Jeff muttered, quietly enough not to disturb any passersby.

Well, you should. You should want to, and you should do it. He imagined Annie tilting her head up, eyes closed, basking in the sun.

"I don't want to." Jeff sat on a bench and stared at ducks.

Imaginary Annie sat lightly next to him. When was the last time you went on a date? Was it before or after the second paintball game?

"It wasn't that long ago," Jeff scoffed. "I graduated. You graduated. You went off to be a hospital administrator —"

Pharmaceutical rep.

He shrugged. "I dated. I dated a bunch of women between starting my law practice and losing it."

Liar. You didn't. Imaginary Annie glowered at him in a way he found irresistibly cute.

"You don't know that."

Real Annie doesn't know that, but I'm just a voice in your head so I know everything you do. You passed up a half-dozen opportunities, not just for casual sex, but relationships. Maybe nothing that would have worked out, but you didn't even try. And here you're doing it again. You need to move on, Jeff. Wasn't that one of the reasons you fled Greendale?

Jeff said nothing.

I've moved on, Imaginary Annie continued. I'm down in Washington, DC, working at the FBI. I wear sharp suits and I get up early and I get things done. I turn a lot of heads, and I've taken your advice and I'm trying to forget you, so I go on dates.

Jeff said nothing.

Or I went on dates, mused Imaginary Annie. Actually I still go on dates, but there's just the one guy. His name is, I don't know, New Jeff. I've moved on, remember. He's tall and he's ten years younger than you and of course he's head over heels for me, because he's not an idiot. And he's got a good career doing something technical with computers at the FBI or maybe a civilian contractor. New Jeff gets along well with his family and he doesn't drink and his first impulse is never to run away from his problems —

"Good," muttered Jeff. "I hope that's true."

New Jeff and I will be moving in together before the end of the year, because unlike some people, New Jeff isn't afraid of commitment. Five years from now we'll be married with a couple of kids and I'll be an FBI agent and we'll work together to balance both our careers with our home life. We make a great team, New Jeff and I.

Jeff winced. "I'm just happy you're happy."

Oh, come on, Vince Vaughn! Imaginary Annie was scornful. You can be honest with me. Lie to anyone else, but be honest with me.

"I do want her to be happy." Jeff watched a duck flap its wings ineffectually, maybe begging for breadcrumbs he didn't have. "I mean, yes. I also want her to miss me like I miss her. I want her to pine for me. I want her to track me down — she could have by now if she wanted to — and slap me and tell me I was wrong to do what I did. I'd love to have been wrong. But I want her to be happy."

You wheedling jackrabbit! I like you! Knowing my friend Jeff makes me happy, pointed out Imaginary Annie. You think I texted you basically every day the whole time I was in DC because I didn't like it when you texted me back? You think I was doing that just to be nice? I don't do anything just to be nice.

"Okay, that's not true. You do nice things for the sake of it all the time. You…" Jeff tried to think of an example. "You did that play for Chang, and then you quit that play for Chang."

I only quit because I thought the director would beg me to come back. I didn't do the play for Chang, I did it for myself. You remember how snippy I was the night of the performance.

"I remember trying to make you feel better."

You remember making me feel better, you mean. Imaginary Annie glared crossly at him. That night was sixty percent a date.

"It wasn't."

Forty percent, then. She shrugged. You were just as selfish as I was — you only wanted me to feel better because it made you feel better to see me happy. Imaginary Annie slid an arm around him and, snuggling close, rested her head on his shoulder. Because you love me.

"I wasn't denying that," he whispered inaudibly.

And you know I love you. Yes, I moved on, but that doesn't mean I don't want to hear from you! Get off your ass and goddamn call me! That's right — Annie is mad enough to swear about this!

"I deleted your number."

You memorized my number. And my email. And the number of my desk at the Hoover building in DC, where I don't need to remind you I'm still working. It's not like you don't know how to find me. Imaginary Annie seized Jeff's phone and jabbed in Annie's number, which is to say, Jeff input Annie's number on his phone. They — he — stared at it. Just hit send, she implored him. You're not just hurting yourself, you're hurting me!

"No!" Jeff said, loudly enough that a passing jogger turned her head. He put the phone away hurriedly. "If I call now, just as you're starting to hit things off with New Jeff —"

There is no New Jeff! I made him up! He imagined her lightly swatting him on the arm, a half-teasing reprimand.

"We don't know that."

Jeff sat on the bench and stared at ducks until Imaginary Annie gave up.

* * *

After work Annie didn't feel like going home, so she wandered downtown for a while to think. Every so often she thought of something she wanted to tell Jeff, and she'd take out her phone and send him a quick text.

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1716:**

 **I can't believe you don't know I'm here.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **Are you sure you don't know?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1721:**

 **Britta said you didn't but it's not like you wouldn't be able to fool her**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **Are you watching me?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1739:**

 **You know I have a date**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I was trying to pretend I was excited about it**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I didn't get coffee this morning because I don't want to see him**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1758:**

 **It's kind of cold here today but you know that already don't you?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **We could be walking through Boston like this together**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **If you weren't such a jerky jerkface self-centered baby**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1803:**

 **I almost called you twice today**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1806:**

 **I won't! I won't let you make me!**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **You're right, I do sound like a child. I don't care, though. I refuse to call you.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **That's what you said you wanted**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

As the sun began to set she drifted the few blocks south towards Boston Common, which she'd never been in before. It was a pretty enough park, not particularly large, or particularly well-lit. She walked along the edge of the park, crossing the street to a statue of a duck with ducklings that seemed familiar, and then continued along a paved path by a pond.

She sat on a bench under a streetlamp. With a heavy sigh she stared out at the darkening water.

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 1812:**

 **It's been barely a day since I saw you and**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I was going to say I was already over it**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **But what's the use in lying?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **JEFF (NEW NUMBER DON'T CALL THIS WHY AM I EVEN SAVING IT?) to ANNIE, 1814:**

 **INCOMING CALL**

 **SLIDE TO ACCEPT**

Stunned, she dropped the phone. It fell onto the pavement in front of the bench. Annie bent down to pick it up again. As she straightened back up, phone still ringing, she saw him. About fifty yards away, across the pond; there were people she wouldn't be able to recognize from that far off but he wasn't one of them. He was seated at another bench, phone pressed against his ear as he stared intently at her.

Annie froze, and they sat there, looking at one another, until Jeff's call went to her voicemail. Then she snapped out of it and tried to call him back, and he was trying to call her again at the same time, and whether he took her call or she took his didn't really matter.

"Hello?"

Notes:

Happy holidays!

Jeff Winger and Annie Edison will return in 2016!

I could have been someone  
Well, so could anyone  
You took my dreams from me  
When I first found you  
I kept them with me, babe  
I put them with my own  
Can't make it all alone  
I've built my dreams around you


	10. That Was Years Ago And I Was Drunk

TO: [ Abed Nadir x]

CC:

BCC:

SUBJECT: Going dark

Thu, 20 August 2015 at 9:35am

Abed — As you may already know, Annie isn't returning to Greendale; after a short visit this weekend she'll be returning to Washington DC to work full-time at the FBI. If she hasn't already told you about this, please do me the favor of responding as though you were hearing it for the first time when she does; it's her news to tell you, not mine.

On a closely related note, I am leaving Greendale forever, removing myself from social media, changing my phone number, and closing this email account. I've realized that there's nothing tying me to Greendale any longer, and I need to move on. I won't be reachable for some time after I go. Not sure how long. When I think it's safe, I'll contact you.

Goodbye until then,

Jeff

* * *

TO: [Jeffrey Winger x]

CC:

BCC: [Annie Edison x]

SUBJECT: Re: Going dark

Thu, 20 August 2015 at 11:18am

I understand. Good luck.

Abed

PS Troy says hi

* * *

"There must be something you aren't telling me," Abed said into the phone. He stood in the living room of the small LA apartment he shared with Troy, in front of a cabinet full of DVDs of movies that were mostly older than he was.

"No! There's not… we just talked."

Abed scowled. "You just talked, you say. That doesn't make any sense."

"Well, I'm sorry if it seems anticlimactic to you, but yes. We just talked."

"One of two things should have happened. Either you should have run into one another's arms and kissed and spouted trite nonsense about love, or else you should have gotten into a screaming fight that only ended when police intervened."

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, Abed, but it wasn't like that at all. I told him I wasn't ready to make any kind of commitment, that I was settled in my new life, but that he would always have a special place in my heart. And he said he understood, and that I was the best baker he'd ever had —"

"Hold on, Shirley, I'm getting another call." Abed checked the number: an unfamiliar one, with an area code he didn't recognize. Odds were good it was a wrong number or some kind of telemarketer and/or scam, but the story of Shirley's reunion with her former employer had turned out to be a big letdown. He put Shirley on hold. "Hello?"

"Hello, Abed?"

Abed gasped.

"Abed?" Jeff repeated.

"I was responding appropriately to your dramatic reappearance," Abed said. "Did you get my email? Did you know Troy said hi?"

"What? I don't —" Jeff's voice cracked.

"Jeff, you sound emotionally drained. Are you emotionally drained?"

"Yeah… yeah. I — I didn't know who else to call about this."

Abed really wanted to rattle off his guesses as to what might have put Jeff through such a wringer, and also been something that his first impulse was to call Abed, rather than someone more emotionally open like Shirley, Britta, Troy, or, of course, Annie. His first guess involved something bad happening to Jeff's mother and his second guess was that Annie had changed her relationship status on Facebook, or something along those lines.

However he was too well-socialized to just blurt these things out; they ran the risk of harming his friend. So instead he just said "It'll probably be okay, Jeff."

"Yeah?"

"Most things are eventually okay."

"This might not be. I think I made a mistake leaving the way I did."

"Yeah, many people thought so," Abed agreed. "I thought you were spinning off. Making a big change. I spun off."

Jeff laughed mirthlessly.

"I have Shirley on hold," Abed said. "I'm going to put you on hold, so I can tell her that you called and you're going through something dramatic."

"Don't —" Jeff began, but he was cut off as Abed put him on hold.

"Sorry to make you wait," Abed told Shirley. "Jeff called. He seems upset."

"Jeff? Jeffrey called?" Shirley sounded extremely intrigued.

"Yes…"

"What's his new number?"

Abed hesitated. Jeff had trusted him enough to call him. "I'm not sure I should give it to you."

"Give me his number, Abed." Shirley's voice was low and menacing. Though she was on the other side of the continent, Abed shivered.

"Jeff was really clear. He wants to cut ties so he doesn't —"

"Abed if you don't give me that man's number I'll reach right through this phone and beat your ass!" Shirley declared.

"You can't —"

"I'm going to count to three. One…"

Abed let out a high-pitched whine.

"Two…"

Abed gave her the number.

"Was that so hard?" Shirley asked, the dark timbre of her voice replaced by a lyric coloratura.

"Don't tell Jeff I gave you his number," Abed implored her, but she'd already hung up. He tried to switch to Jeff, but Jeff too had disconnected.

Rattled, he had to watch both Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II to calm down.

* * *

"Hello?"

Jeff's mouth was dry. On the one hand, he'd done so much to get away from her, that seeing all his efforts thwarted — seeing Annie, in Boston, having tracked him down — should have stung him.

On the other hand, she'd come for him. She'd chased after him. Until he saw her, he hadn't realized how badly he'd wanted her to find him. He was so, so happy to see her. Also nervous. Suddenly running away from her seemed like such a foolish plan, in retrospect — of course she would find him; she had always been good at that.

"Hello," Annie said. It was hard to tell over the phone but she sounded pleased to see him.

"So this is Boston." Jeff wasn't sure how to proceed — apologize to her? Thank her? Get up and run away, then move again, to Phoenix or Portland or Miami?

"I'm aware." Maybe he'd been mistaken. Maybe she wasn't pleased to see him.

"Listen," he said, because that usually preceded important statements and he was stalling for time. "I appreciate your tracking me —"

"I didn't track you down," she interrupted. "This is a big dumb coincidence, us meeting like this in this stupid cold park." Yeah, his initial impression seemed more and more like wishful thinking. She sounded like she was about to burst into tears, or maybe like she was about to throw something at him.

He chuckled nervously. There had been a time when he was unflappable, when he could have had a conversation like this without a change in his heart rate, when he could have just smiled and shrugged and walked away from Annie Edison, if it came to that. But that time was long gone, years gone. "Well, you found me."

"I wasn't looking for you," she said. "If you had been… you would have found out. My job isn't in Washington. It's here. Downtown. Like five blocks that way." She pointed towards his office, in the city center.

Jeff took a ragged breath and tried to think of something to say.

"I saw you yesterday," Annie continued. "In a coffee shop over there, the one with the big kettle on the sign. I thought you had come to me, actually. But then you were gone, and Britta said —"

"You talked to Britta?" Jeff winced, imagining her opinions and advice to Annie.

"Yes, Jeff, I spoke to her," Annie said coldly. "And I texted. Like people do."

"What? I mean, uh…" Jeff cleared his throat. "I didn't know you were here either."

"Yeah, she said that. And Frankie —"

"Frankie, too?"

"Yes, and…" Annie's voice caught. "What the hell, Jeff?"

Jeff's shoulders sagged. "I was… I thought it would be better to just rip the band-aid off and end it clean, but that was wishful thinking."

"More like magical thinking! I got your stupid letter, you know…" Across the pond Annie produced something that was probably a sheet of paper from somewhere that was probably a jacket pocket — darkness and distance made it hard to be definitive. " 'I know you need to move on,' " she read. " 'Maybe someday we can meet again when we've both changed enough it wouldn't be awkward.' " She stared at him, over the water. "This awkward enough for you?"

"You carry that around with you?"

"That's not my point!" Annie tucked the paper away someplace. "My point is that you should have talked to me before — what is this? I don't even know what to — you're impossible!" Her raised voice carried over the pond, reaching him a fraction of a second out of sync with the reproduction over his phone.

"I just wanted to let you go." Jeff winced at the bitter laugh that echoed over the water. "I thought — I think about you every day, and you deserve more than you can get from me."

"You think about me every day," repeated Annie. "Sure Jeff, whatever. I suppose you have that clipping hung up in your office and you can't help seeing it…"

"Next to my bed, actually," Jeff said, "with the picture of you from when I graduated. Back when we were…" He trailed off, realizing that there weren't any good ways to end that sentence. Sort-of-not-really-make-believe-I-only-realized-it-after-it-was-over dating? "Whatever."

"What's that supposed to mean? You missed me? You could have called me any time!"

"I couldn't, though. You would have…" He struggled for a way to explain it. "Well, this would have happened."

Annie scoffed. "You are just mister mixed messages, you know that? Ugh!" He saw her jerk the phone away from her ear as she put her head down for a moment. Then she sat back up. "You act like this, and you almost married Britta!"

"What?" Jeff searched his brain. "Shirley's wedding? That was years ago, and I was drunk, because —"

"No, not Shirley's wedding," she snapped. "The day Subway almost shut the school down. Remember? There was a magic door, and the school board, and 'Borchert Borchert loved computers?' We thought Greendale was ending — and you decided to console yourself in Britta's arms!"

"Oh." Jeff had forgotten about that part of it, in all the confusion and excitement. The last day he'd been able to deny his feelings to himself, and maybe not coincidentally, the last day before she'd frozen him out. "Is that why you hardly spoke to me all last year?"

"What are you talking about?" Annie sounded like she thought it was a non sequitur. "Hardly spoke to you? We were — are — friends! You, me, Abed, Britta —"

Jeff felt a lump growing in his throat as his frustration mounted. Of course they'd been friends, but once the two of them — Jeff and Annie — had been something else. He'd been closer to her than Abed or Britta, not further away, and then she'd reversed it. He struggled to find a way to explain. "The three of you lived together and…"

"And what?" Annie didn't seem interested in giving him a chance to explain. "That makes it okay that my best friend just suddenly vanishes right when I'm moving to a new city and I really needed you?"

Jeff barely heard her. A year's worth of missed opportunities galloped past his mind's eye. He could have said something that night at the speakeasy, or after Chang's Karate Kid, or the night they'd separately snuck out of Britta and Abed's party. They should have left that party together — they should have done so many things together! "God, we didn't even dance at Garrett's wedding!"

"What? What does that have to do with anything?"

He was quiet for a moment. That was dumb, he thought. Back up, come at it from a different angle. "It's getting cold and dark. You want to continue this conversation indoors? There's, uh, there's a bunch of good places over on Columbus."

Annie was silent.

"I make real grown-up lawyer money again. I'll buy you a steak and a lobster and a cheesecake for dessert," he offered. "And wine."

"I don't believe you," she finally said. "I just — I can't."

"What's the —" Jeff began, but his phone clicked. She'd hung up.

Across the pond he could see that she'd stood and was frantically doing something with her phone. She started walking away from the water at an angle, and he raced around the pond to catch her.

Jeff reached Annie just as she opened the door to a car that had pulled up for her — she'd called an inconveniently close Uber. "Annie!" he cried.

She turned to face him with eyes like knives. "Now — now — you want to date me? Go home, Jeff!" Annie snarled, and climbed into the car. She dramatically slammed the door, so dramatically in fact that she had to open and reclose it for it to latch properly.

As the car pulled away, Jeff growled breathlessly and texted her.

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 1822:**

 **This is so like you**

He regretted it almost instantly. After all, she wasn't wrong: he did want to date her. The message had been received, and her response was just as clear.

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 1823:**

 **I've missed you so much. Please.**

* * *

Jeff was pretty sure he knew who was calling but he answered anyway. "Hello?"

"Jeffrey Tobias Winger, what the hell is the matter with you?"

"Hi, Shirley."

"First you run off without telling anybody where you're going! And you don't even tell me to my face, I have to hear about it from Annie!"

"I know."

Shirley fumed. "And then apparently you're talking to Abed, and Britta, and I don't even merit a text message?!"

"I know."

"And you break poor Annie's heart, running off!"

"Believe me," Jeff said with a sigh, "I know."

"Who raised you? Raccoons?"

"Shirley…"

"Or those colorful fish you see in pet stores in the little tiny fishbowls, who can't share space with other fish because they'll murder them? Betta fish? Were you raised by Betta fish, Jeffrey?!"

"I just talked to Annie," Jeff said quietly.

"Hold on, I'm not done being furious with you for vanishing and not telling me!"

"I didn't tell my mother, either," he offered. "Annie did, though, it turns out. Mom gave me a real earful on her behalf last week, I can tell you."

"You don't deserve that girl, Jeffrey."

"I know. I mean, I know I know." He sighed. "And I don't have her, and I never did, so, here we are."

Shirley was silent a moment.

"Aren't you going to rant at me some more?"

"Ugh, what's the use? You keep making terrible choices…" She sighed into the phone, a burst of static in Jeff's ear. "You spoke to Annie? So she knows where you are and how to contact you?"

"Uh, heh, yeah."

"Well, good." Shirley sounded pensive. "You two take a little time apart and you'll both feel better, I can understand that, but you can't unilaterally decide that, it has to be mutual and why am I trying to advise you at this late date? You're a lost cause. Where are you?"

"Working at a law firm in Boston."

"Boston? But —"

"Yeah."

"Oh, Jeffrey."

"I didn't know she was here!" Jeff insisted. "If I had known I would have gone to, I don't know, San Diego."

"It's not too late!"

"I talked to Annie. We bumped into one another earlier tonight. What am I going to do, Shirley? I mean, maybe in retrospect it was a bad idea to do what I did, but I did it, and —"

Shirley was silent for a few seconds, long enough Jeff wondered if she'd hung up on him. "You have options," she finally said.

"I don't!" Jeff replied. "If she calls me I'll come, I can't help it, I'm not strong enough to —"

"It's not about strong, it's about doing right by the people you care about. Do you even know what the right thing is?"

"Yes. I think so." Jeff lay back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Probably. Maybe."

The allusion went over Shirley's head. "Well, no use crying over spilled milk. For starters, you need to just be her friend, Jeffrey. You know how to do that — you've been her friend for years."

"You think?" Jeff sighed. "Sometimes I wonder if she and I were ever really friends, after…" He tried to remember when it had really started. "After I stopped sleeping with Britta, maybe. We weren't dating, but… I didn't have a girlfriend and she was the girlfriend I didn't have."

Shirley hummed noncommittally. "I remember."

"Then she stopped. After you left… it started before you left, actually," he said thoughtfully. "It used to be I'd make a joke about showing a documentary in my class instead of giving a lecture, and she'd give me a hard time, and then one day I made a joke like that and she didn't say anything. So I showed the documentary, I went ahead and did it, because I thought that would get her attention back… and she didn't say anything. I did it again and she didn't say anything. I started drinking during the day and she didn't say anything. She'd moved on."

"Oh, Jeffrey," Shirley said quietly.

"Don't get me wrong, we still hung out. Me and her and Abed and Britta, and Craig… Chang. And Frankie and Elroy."

"I know," Shirley said.

"But whenever there was a thing it would be her and Abed, or her and Abed and Britta, off doing the one thing, and I was stuck at the grown-ups' table with Craig and Frankie. And I was miserable." Jeff's eyes filled with tears, and his voice grew thick. "I don't think I even knew until, hell, until I found out she was staying in DC… I mean, coming here, it turns out… that's when I realized just how miserable I was."

"It's okay," cooed Shirley in his ear.

"Because before that, suddenly right before she left she was there, again, like she'd taken a year off from being my not-girlfriend but she was done and she was back, and I was grateful. So pathetically grateful. She went to DC, but she was coming back, and we were texting and talking like it was…" He let out a ragged sigh. "And then she was leaving me again, she'd moved on, and I had to do something."

"It's okay," Shirley repeated.

"She would have talked me out of it, or you would have, or Frankie even, so I didn't give any of you a chance to…"

"It's okay."

"What am I going to do?" Jeff asked plaintively.

There was a moment of silence on the line. "Well," Shirley said slowly, "the first thing I would suggest is prayer, but you're you, so… have you thought about going back to therapy?"

* * *

Vicki wasn't home when Annie got in. She'd spent the car ride distracting herself from the conversation with Jeff by focusing instead on how she was going to pay for the Uber. The pittance the FBI paid her was only temporary, but it was all she had to live on for the next few years.

Instead of getting Jeff to buy her an expensive meal she'd spent money getting away from him, Annie mused as she flopped onto the couch and started playing a random romantic comedy on Netflix. She stared at it for some amount of time, exhausted and blank, until someone came in the apartment.

"Hey, have you seen Vicki?" Quendra asked. "Because she's late." She set down her purse and sat at the other end of the couch, by Annie's feet. "What are you watching?"

"Uh…" Annie realized she had no idea, not about the title of the movie or its plot or even who was in it. "Something with… that guy." She pointed feebly at the screen.

"Ethan Hawke?"

"Okay," Annie said listlessly.

Quendra stared at her a moment. "You seem tired."

"I saw Jeff," Annie groaned. She hadn't meant to tell anyone, but it just spilled out.

Quendra nodded. "I know, I know. Vicki told me this morning," she added. "I can't believe he's in your city — you totally had dibs!"

"I did, didn't I?" Annie blinked. "But I mean, I saw him saw him. He saw me."

"Aw, honey," Quendra murmured sympathetically, and patted Annie's calf. "Was he with another girl? He's an asshole."

"No. He wanted to… he said he thought about me all the time and he wanted to buy me dinner."

"Bastard!" Quendra cried, then did a double take. "But you're here… it was the way he said it?" she guessed.

Annie sat up. "He acted like… I don't know. Like my not going back to Colorado was some kind of great betrayal. And, ugh. Look at this." She called up the two text messages he'd sent her on the drive back, then passed her phone to Quendra.

Quendra read the messages carefully. "Ugh. Talk about mixed messages."

"He's the guy for mixed messages," Annie agreed. "I mean, you remember, that one time he tried to get —"

"I know, I know," Quendra said, cutting her off. The story of the time Jeff tried to stop Annie from bringing a guy she liked into their circle of friends by importing Quendra, AKA the time Jeff used Quendra to try to make Annie jealous, was one Annie and Quendra had told one another several times. It was, after all, one of the few things they had in common. "So he just vanishes, pfft, nothing but the note —"

Annie wrinkled her forehead. "Did I tell you about the note?"

"Vicki again," Quendra said with a shrug. "He leaves you that stupid I-love-you-but-I-can't note and then a month later you just stumble across him, and he's like, 'hey, let's make out'? I mean, give me a break!"

"Yeah," Annie said, swallowing. "It was really hard to say no, too."

"Did he say where he wanted to take you for dinner?"

Annie shook her head. "Someplace by Boston Common."

"Lot of good places over there. Seafood, cocktails… I bet that was hard, yeah."

"No, it wasn't that. I really miss him." She leaned back against the couch cushions. "And he says he misses me, so… maybe I should have listened to him. I wanted to hug him —"

"More than that, I bet," Quendra muttered.

Annie shrugged. "Maybe. But that's not… I can't do that. He jerked me around for so long, and he was going to marry someone else, and I tried to move on, and then…" She held her head in her hands. "He just has this power over me. I can't shake him from my system no matter how much I know better."

"You did, though!" Quendra said encouragingly. She patted Annie delicately on the shoulder. "You moved all the way here."

"The last time I saw him before that, he kissed me goodbye like he was going to kiss me again the next time he saw me. And then he was just gone, and… I miss him."

"Kissing you goodbye was probably just more of him jerking you around." Quendra shook her head dismissively. "Listen, I don't usually badmouth my friends' exes, because it can backfire on you when they get back together, but you and I aren't very good friends and also Jeb is a total douche, okay?"

Annie sniffed. "Yeah."

"Yeah is right. If he wants you back he's going to have to do more than just be like 'sorry, babe.' " She affected a deep voice. " 'I been real busy but I'm free tonight so let's do Netflix at your place. That's code for sex.' "

Annie laughed a little despite herself. "Your Jeb impression isn't very good."

"Seriously, though, you've got to take care of you," Quendra said. "No one else is going to."

 **ANNIE to JEFF (OLD NUMBER), 2258:**

 **I can't believe you, you know that?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **You act like you were doing me a favor, blah blah I deserve better, and then you ask me out**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **The worst part is I really wanted to say yes**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**

 **I miss you. Jerk**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE DELIVERY FAILED]**


	11. If You Ask Me Nicely Enough

"And then Shirley got my number from Abed," Jeff was saying. He sat at his desk, with Mark leaning against his office doorframe. "And she tore me a new one, too."

"Ugh, that's rough, buddy," Mark clucked his tongue in sympathy. "Annie just shut you down."

"Yeah."

"You were, like, putting it all out there, and she was having none of it."

"Yeah."

"She took your heart and just squeezed it." Mark made a gesture imitating a vise.

"Yeah. Thanks, Mark."

"Oh, so sad." He shook his head. "On the plus side, now you know how easy it is to get an Uber over in front of the state house."

Jeff glared at him.

"I'm trying to find a silver lining. Really reaching, I know… so what's your next move? Singing telegram at her workplace? Her office is just down the block, right? I know a guy who'll dress up in a stuffed animal costume and then strip it off. It sounds a little off, I know, but it's a whole cute strip-o-gram thing. He's very tasteful."

"Hmmph." Jeff managed a weak smile. "Not really my style."

"Fair enough, chief. Have you considered a cheese clock? It's like a flower clock — you send her one rose at one o'clock, two roses at two, and by midnight she has the full arrangement of seventy-eight roses, I'm sure you're familiar — but instead of roses, you send her gourmet cheeses." Mark beamed. "It's how I courted Eleanor."

Jeff stared at him a moment. "You know, I've missed you."

"Aw, I missed you too, buddy." Mark took a step towards Jeff's desk, in case Jeff was going to stand so they could hug. When Jeff didn't move he sat in one of Jeff's office chairs. "So if you're passing on my ideas, what do you have planned?"

"I don't know." Jeff rubbed the back of his neck and glanced up at the ceiling. "Maybe nothing. Maybe I should lie low for a while, avoid the Starbucks where she saw me…"

"Tango!" Mark sounded shocked. "You said she had your note — which means she found your note, not for nothing — she had it on her person. She walks around with it. You're in, man! It's first and inches, you don't want to punt now!"

"I've got to face reality," Jeff said. "She's moved on. She moved on more than a year ago."

"Your note. Her pocket," Mark reminded him.

"She wasn't happy to see me," Jeff countered. "And she'd seen me around and not tried to talk to me. There's not some grand plan to us both being here — it's just a stupid coincidence."

"Oh, I hope that's not true." Stone strolled into Jeff's office. "Surely you're both here because you're skilled legal professionals."

"Get this, Will," Mark said before Jeff could stop him. "Jeff's ex that he moved here to avoid? She moved here too. She works like a block away, at the FBI office."

Jeff saw a flicker of… something… cross Stone's face before his usual neutral expression returned. Confusion? Fear? Whatever it was, it was gone in an eyeblink. "That sounds unlikely," Stone said coolly.

"World's full of unlikely things," Jeff replied.

"Speaking of unlikely things, I just got off the phone with the client at Via —" Stone began.

"Laser Lotus," Mark corrected him. "Come on, Will."

Stone smiled briefly. "Fine. I just got off a call with Laser Lotus, and they need to move up the meeting with Delaware co-counsel to tomorrow morning," he announced.

"What? Why?" asked Mark. "Tomorrow's Saturday."

"I'm not sure," Stone admitted. "The schedule we'd agreed to conflicts with some religious holiday or something." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter. I told Andrea to cancel your other ticket," he told Jeff, "and get you on the Acela down there tonight. She'll email you your itinerary. The Laser Lotus people are already there."

Jeff let out a long breath.

"This a problem?" Stone asked, seeing Jeff hesitate. "I admit I probably should have checked with you before instructing Andrea. Do I need to go?" His tone made it clear he'd really rather not.

A weekend trip out of town might well be just what the doctor ordered. Jeff could spend a little time getting his head together before talking to Annie again. She'd probably appreciate a cooling-off period, he told himself. This wasn't him running from his problems. He knew exactly where his problems were. "Not at all, it's great," Jeff said, and meant it. "I'll run home, throw some socks in a bag, and get to the train station with bells on."

"Sorry to make you rush," Stone said as Jeff and Mark both rose. "Needs must when the devil drives."

"You know, I've never understood that expression," Mark mused. "There's three verbs and only one noun."

* * *

 **HIS NAME IS JOE to ANNIE, 1815:**

 **Hey, I didn't see you this morning or yesterday morning…**

 **Hope you're okay!**

 **Are we still on for tomorrow?**

 **JEFF (NEW!) to ANNIE, 1846:**

 **I'm sorry about yesterday**

 **I was hoping to see you this weekend just to talk about it**

 **But I've got to go out of town on business last-minute**

 **HIS NAME IS JOE to ANNIE, 1851:**

 **Maybe we could grab a bite before the concert?**

 **Or if you can't make it that's cool…**

 **JEFF (NEW!) to ANNIE, 1857:**

 **Right now I'm on a train to Delaware**

 **Life is just a never-ending cavalcade of excitement**

Annie stared at the text messages and sighed. They just kept coming. Joe Brown had probably asked himself when she was most likely to respond promptly to a text message and come up with the time she spent on the bus coming home from work. Jeff probably thought he only needed to remind her he existed, snap his fingers and she'd come running.

She started to type in a response to Joe, confirming the date and asking for time/place details, but she deleted it. Then she started a response claiming that she was sick and couldn't make it, and deleted that one, too.

 **ANNIE to JEFF (OLD NUMBER), 1908:**

 **What do you want from me?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Exhibit # 8 bazillion in the Jeff Sends Mixed Messages case: you wanted to see me but you're going to Delaware instead.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Jeez, I don't know what you should have done! I just know you're telling me that I'm not as important to you as whatever your trip is for.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Okay, you're right, I wouldn't blow off my job for you either, and you're low man on the totem pole at your new place the same way I'm new at mine.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **But it puts me in a real awkward position**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **And now I've got this coffee shop guy to get rid of**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

She stared at the last line. She'd written it without thinking, but it was true: she had no desire to see Joe Brown, no desires for him at all beyond getting rid of him. She'd put off making any kind of decision the whole bus ride home, which only reminded her of her Uber ride the night before. She sat on the sofa, looking at her phone, and not making any decisions, until Vicki came home.

"Hey, Annie!" she called out as she entered the apartment. "Just FYI, I did come home last night, it was just super late and you know I have to get up super early for the bakery! How's… ah." Vicki trailed off as she entered the living room and read the expression on Annie's face. "Quendra told me about your Jeff encounter."

"You were right and I was wrong, I guess," Annie said sadly.

"Well, I hate to say I told you so, but I did tell you so. Screw Jeff Winger, though, you know?"

"Heh. Yeah."

"You should come out with me and Todd," Vicki suggested. "Hit some bars, loud music, get him out of your system!"

"I don't know if — wait, Todd's in Boston, too?"

"What?"

"Todd from Greendale Todd?"

"Oh. No. There was a Todd? Todd's from Revere. And we're just friends and it's all on the up and up and if Neil asks you don't know a Todd and I've never mentioned him and I sleep here every night, okay? Can you do that for me?"

Annie squinted, nonplussed. She grunted something that might have been a yes or a no.

"Great!" Vicki said with a smile. "Seriously you should come, you shouldn't be sitting around moping."

She stammered. "I don't think I can afford —"

"Please." Vicki cut Annie off with a brief glare. "Like you'll be paying for any of your own drinks."

"Okay," Annie said, surrendering to the inevitable. When no one bought her any drinks she'd be able to justify begging off and going back home, and Vicki would be gratified she'd given it a shot.

"Awesome!" Vicki's grin suddenly vanished. "You're not wearing that, are you?"

Annie glanced down at her work clothes. "Why not?"

"At least change into a tank top," Vicki suggested.

"It's cold!" Annie protested.

"It's not cold in the bars!"

This is a make-friends-with-Vicki occasion, Annie reminded herself. "Fine. I'll change and we can head out."

* * *

In her room Annie weighed her phone in her hand.

 **ANNIE to HIS NAME IS JOE, 2003:**

 **[Sorry emoji] Stuff has been crazy — I don't think I can make it [Sorry emoji]**

The response came almost immediately.

 **HIS NAME IS JOE to ANNIE, 2004:**

 **That's ok!**

 **No problem — Good luck with craziness!**

Annie started to type a response — just a quick thank-you — but decided it would send the wrong message. It would have been one thing if Jeff weren't in town, or even if Jeff were here but Annie felt something — anything — for Joe Brown.

 **ANNIE to JEFF (NEW!), 2010:**

 **Maybe some time next week**

 **ANNIE to JEFF (OLD NUMBER), 2010:**

 **Delaware! Land of Mystery and Enchantment! How could I resent being pre-empted by a visit to Wilmington, the City of Lights?**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **You really know how to make a girl feel valued**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

Then, impulsively:

 **ANNIE to HIS NAME IS JOE, 2011:**

 **Actually you know stuff has been crazy but it would be a good distraction**

 **I hope you haven't made other plans in the last ten minutes**

 **[Nervous face emoji] [blush emoji] [sorry emoji]**

 **HIS NAME IS JOE to ANNE, 2012:**

 **Not at all! [Thumbs-up emoji]**

Maybe I'll like him more if I get to know him a little better, Annie thought. It's not like another year of not dating Jeff Winger is going to make anything better for anybody.

 **VICKI to ANNIE, 2014:**

 **Are you ready?**

 **PS I am NOT cheating on Neil with Todd and you can tell Neil I said that if he ever asks**

 **I mean don't bring it up obviously but if he asks you should tell him I told you I am not cheating on him**

 **and as far as you know that's the truth**

"I'm coming!" she called. Vicki was only in the next room. She threw on a tank top and ventured forth into the night for what turned out to be an evening of not being able to hear what people were saying, politely declining mens' attempts to get her drunk or possibly roofie her, and trying not to watch Vicki make out with her platonic friend.

 **ANNIE to JEFF (OLD NUMBER), 0017:**

 **Is this what normal people do? This sucks.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

* * *

Well, well, well, Harvey Keitel.

Jeff stood at the window in his hotel room and stared out over the rooftop across the street at the singularly unimpressive skyline of Wilmington, Delaware, corporate litigation capital of the world. He imagined, not for the first time, what Annie might have said if she were there.

It's super cool and mature of you to run away like this, Imaginary Annie said.

"I'm not running away. This is for work. I have a meeting in the morning." Jeff loosened his tie and debated whether he'd rather have a drink in the hotel bar or just go to bed.

Sure. You didn't jump at the chance to get out of range of the ol' Disney Eyes. Imaginary Annie hopped onto a tabletop, her legs swinging. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Jeff ignored her and busied himself taking off his shoes. "Maybe I'll call room service and have a bottle of scotch sent up," he mused.

Yeah, that's a great move. You can bill the client for it! Imaginary Annie said. That was sarcasm. Also I'm in Boston and I'm not going to tell you to stop drinking, so if your big plan is to drink too much to get me to pay attention to you, which I bet it is because your alcohol consumption dropped by ninety percent as soon as I went off to DC, drinking here and now is not a good way to do it.

"You know, as time goes on you sound less and less like Annie and more and more like my thinly-veiled self-loathing," Jeff told her as he hung his suit jacket up. The pants went over a chair back, while his shirt, t-shirt, and socks were dirty laundry.

Oh, Jeff, come on! Yes, I'm a projection of your imagination, but don't you think you know the real Annie well enough for me to be a good facsimile? I have all of Annie's traits. I'm hot, but not little-girl hot, and I'm incredibly clever and fun and you miss me when I'm not around. I love you like a slightly estranged older brother, and I'm mad at you right now for running away and then being pushy, but mostly I tolerate your misguided attraction to me. It's only fair, I figure, since I was hung up on you for so long. Plus I kind of like the way we both know that I have you completely wrapped around my little finger.

"Mark pointed out to me, this morning, that you apparently keep my letter on your person," Jeff said slowly.

Imaginary Annie shrugged. Not a big deal. Maybe I hold on to it because I really do care about you. We have a lot of history, and just because I've moved on doesn't mean I don't care. Or maybe I just happened to have it on me through coincidence, like I was wearing that jacket when I found it and I stuck it in a pocket and forgot about it.

"And you called me your best friend."

Well, duh, Imaginary Annie said with a toss of her hair. We texted like every day, all summer.

"Some of those texts were pretty…" Jeff trailed off, not needing to say 'flirty.'

Best friend was hyperbole — I was upset — but obviously you're one of my closest friends. I can have close friends I don't make out with. I never kissed Abed or Britta once. I mean, Imaginary Annie clarified, **I've** kissed Imaginary Britta and then some, but that doesn't count and you have a very dirty mind.

Jeff smirked at his own imagination's wit.

But seriously, you can be my best friend without me wanting to kiss you except as a favor to you, Imaginary Annie said.

"You also complained about me getting engaged to Britta, on the day we met Borchert." Jeff frowned, remembering. "I think that's what you were complaining about."

Yeah, that's a big mystery. Why would I complain about that? You were only hooking up again with the woman you'd been sleeping with to distract yourself from me.

"That's not… okay, that's kind of true. But only kind of." Jeff threw himself backwards onto the bed and spread his arms wide.

And we both know Britta deserves better than to be used like that. Unlike me, she doesn't have the self-respect to deal with you and all your weird issues. I'm spunky as fuck and I can handle you — up to a point — that's one of the things you love about me. But Britta? She is not a woman you should be in a relationship with, or even sleeping with. You know that.

"It was a crazy time!" Jeff pulled a pillow over his head, to hide the tears in his eyes. "You know, I was only three days out of the hospital!"

Ugh, don't remind me. Jeff imagined Annie giving a whole-body shudder. Nothing less attractive than a gross old man in a hospital bed.

"Real Annie wouldn't say that," Jeff said.

No, of course not. But she would think it. Or she thought it. Probably that's why I cooled off on you right after that. Sick old man, on top of hooking up with Britta… It's clear why I looked at you and said, no thank you, time for Annie Edison to move on.Imaginary Annie hopped down from her seat and cuddled up next to him on the hotel mattress. It sucks that you waited until then to decide you were in love with me, she whispered wistfully in his ear. But it's your fault, not mine. You can't say I didn't give you every chance. The sooner you move on, the better, and I'm saying that as your friend.

"I think I liked it better when you were insulting me," Jeff murmured.

You're one of my closest friends and I do care about you, even if I don't want to be your actual girlfriend. I let you kiss me goodbye, remember? I thought it would make you feel better.

"I definitely liked it better when you were insulting me."

If you ask me nicely enough I might decide that I should sleep with you to make you feel better.

The thought struck him like a blow to the chest; his entire body spasmed.

Like you could turn me down… aw. In Jeff's imagination Annie sighed sadly, then kissed him lightly on the cheek; he could almost feel her breath. I'm sorry. These aren't things I would ever want to risk hurting you by saying out loud, because I love you. And as long as you don't break down and beg me for sex I'm sure it'll never come up. You're just feeling especially low right now. And you know you've got me worried about you. I love you like an uncle, but I love you.

"I love you too," Jeff murmured.

Oh, believe me, I know.


	12. Jeff's Annie

Monday morning Annie was at Beans 'n Things as it opened, about an hour and a half before her usual time. She flinched, despite herself, at the sight of Joe Brown's usual table empty, and felt like she'd upset the balance of the universe somehow.

"Triple short americano?" Jeanne the barista asked her.

Annie nodded and paid.

"You're in early," Jeanne observed as she made Annie's drink. "You beat your fella in."

"He's not my fella," Annie said quickly. "We went on one date. He's not anything. I mean — okay, that's kind of a rude way to put it…"

"No, no, I get it," Jeanne said. "If I see him, I'll tell him you never want to see him again." Seeing Annie's shocked face, she added "I'm kidding. I don't really care. Although he was a good tipper."

"What time does he usually get here?" Annie asked, checking the time on her phone.

"Usually? Hour, hour and fifteen minutes from now. Haven't seen either of you since last week, though. I thought maybe you'd decided to do your daily flirting someplace else."

Annie frowned. "He didn't come in Thursday or Friday, either?" He'd said he had, hadn't he, when he was texting? Maybe she'd misunderstood.

"No…" Jeanne handed Annie her coffee. "Are you worried he's cheating on you, making small talk with some other girl in some other coffee shop?"

"I told you, he's not… ugh." Annie sagged against the counter as Jeanne began filling the order of the other customers who came in after Annie. "He was flirty and he asked me out and I said yes and I shouldn't have but he seemed nice and low-key and the concert was soooo boring I spent the whole time thinking about how maybe it would have been fun if I'd been there with…" She paused for breath, and decided against finishing that thought. "So I'm coming in earlier, going to get to work earlier, going to be a go-getter, and also going to not see him again."

"Man, I'm terrible at feigning interest, I guess," Jeanne mused. "Because you seem to have decided that I care."

"That would make you good at feigning interest," Annie said weakly. She hoped they were engaged in friendly banter. Jeanne was hard to read, and it was early.

"It depends on what my goal is," Jeanne countered. "I could have told you he was a loser," she added, "I mean, come on, he was hanging out in a coffee shop looking to pick you up."

"I don't think that was why he —"

"He'd come in fifteen minutes before you got here, stick a twenty in the tip jar, and wait for you. Then once your bus was around the corner he'd leave. I guess he gave me the twenty so I wouldn't say anything," Jeanne said, "but he hasn't bribed me lately. And it's fun to, you know, stir the pot."

Annie strained to reconcile Jeanne's statements with the blandly cute and friendly guy who'd taken her to an awkward Natalie Is Freezing concert. "Huh," she said.

"If I see him again I'll tell him the jig is up," Jeanne continued blithely. "Unless you want to bribe me to say something else?" She sent a hopeful glance Annie's way.

Annie shook her head. Something seemed off, but then, she'd been off-balance ever since she spotted Jeff buying a latte the week before. "I couldn't afford it, and even if I could, I don't think it'd be worth it."

Jeanne made a face. "Well, see, now you have got me really mildly curious about your life, which sucks for me because I hate asking follow-up questions. You ask one, and then there's another, and another, and it's like, where do you stop? I have so many better things to do than ask follow-up questions. It's insane, the number of better things I have to do."

"Uh huh." Annie sipped her coffee.

"But okay, you twist my arm, ugh. So the guy was a drip and the concert was a bust?" Jeanne seemed to recognize each of the people who came in for coffee as they chatted, or at least she seemed to have a preternatural sense of what they would order. She barely had to glance at them, allowing her to focus her full attention on Annie.

Annie watched Jeanne work. "Um. Yeah. It wasn't his fault, he was just weird and nervous and I didn't know it until the concert started but I really don't like Natalie Is Freezing. A couple of my friends did, back in Colorado, and they played my school once but I wasn't really paying attention… I thought I'd give them a try. And Joe Brown is not somebody I want to see again. We didn't really click, like, conversationally, you know? Long pauses."

Jeanne said nothing for a bit. Just when Annie's sense of the mood of their interaction had shifted from kind of awkward to super awkward and weird, she said "Like that?"

"Yes!" Annie nodded, slightly relieved that the tension had ratcheted back down to pretty darn awkward. "He was anxious the whole time but he didn't seem to actually be any more into the date than I was. He kept running off and reappearing. We got burritos before the concert. I paid for mine myself. Afterwards we'd kind of planned to get drinks or something but instead he said he needed to get home to do some work, which saved me the trouble of coming up with something… So, you know, no hard feelings?"

"Man, this is why I don't ask people questions," Jeanne whined. "The answers are always sooo boring! I've completely forgotten why I thought I wanted to know about your stupid date. Maybe I had a microstroke. You can have a free mini-muffin if you leave right now."

* * *

At exactly 12:15, just as she was sitting down to lunch at her desk, Annie's phone rang. It took her a moment to identify the sound; no one had given her a reason to use her phone as a phone in weeks, not counting Jeff that one time.

It was an unknown number — Annie's first thought was that Jeff must have changed his phone again, then caved and was calling her from the new number, which was crazy. Probably it had nothing to do with anything.

"Hello?"

"Hello, can I speak to Annie Edison, please?"

"This is she," Annie said carefully. The voice was slightly familiar but she couldn't place it.

"Oh, excellent. My name is William Stone, I'm an attorney. We actually met once before —"

"I remember." Annie knew him now: the rangy lawyer who'd run the polygraph session with Pierce's will. "What's this about?"

"I'm calling because of an element of Pierce Hawthorne's bequest. Can you come in to my office? It would be much easier to explain in person."

Annie smiled. "Unless your office is in Boston that's impossible. I've relocated."

"Yes, I know," Stone said, surprising her. "I'm with Biddle Heath, near the courthouse downtown."

Annie emitted a surprised gasp.

"I can give you the exact address if you like —"

"That's okay, I'll just google it," Annie said. "Um. I actually work right near the courthouse. I could come over right now — my lunch doesn't end until one — or at six? Or tomorrow?"

"Six o'clock this evening would be great," Stone said coolly. "I'll tell the receptionist to expect you."

"Great…"

"I'll see you then."

Annie set her phone down carefully and tried to guess what else Pierce might have wanted from her, or to give her. He'd left his fortune to Troy, except for a handful of odds and ends, including the diamond tiara he'd given her. Maybe he'd only meant for her to have the tiara for a limited time, she mused. It was in a safety deposit box back in Colorado, which had seemed easiest.

 **ANNIE to JEFF (OLD NUMBER), 1218:**

 **Weird thing just happened, got a call from Pierce's lawyer out of the blue**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **If only I had a lawyer of my own to advise me!**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **I wouldn't be able to pay him, of course, but perhaps we could work out some alternate arrangement…**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **I meant a contingency basis!**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Gross, Jeff! Get your mind out of the gutter**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

Annie might have texted more, but the phone rang a second time. Assuming Stone had forgotten something, she answered it.

"Hello, Annie?" The breathless voice on the other end definitely wasn't Stone.

"Hello?" she asked, cautiously.

"Ha! Excellent. I need to see you. It's a matter of life and death, chaos and order, Betty and Veronica!"

Annie was silent for a moment. Could it be Joe Brown? "I'm sorry, who is this?"

"Oh! Ha, ha. Ha." The man didn't so much laugh as say the word 'ha' a few times. "This is Russell Borchert. I love computers?"

Of all the things Annie had been expecting, this was not one of them. "Doctor Borchert?" she asked, incredulous.

"Yes! Exactly! I have a PhD, so good of you to remember! I don't normally like to use the phone — I mean, anyone could be listening in. The Omnibus Crime Control Act of 1968, hello? Ha! But this is important. I need to clamp you, for Scarlett."

Annie waited a moment for him to elaborate, then prompted him. "Go on."

"Now I know you're in town, so it should be a simple matter to hop over here so we can hook you up…"

"Dr. Borchert —"

"Call me Russ!"

"Okay. Russ, I need a lot more information. Where are you? What do you want to do, exactly?" Can we do this without me being alone with you?

"Ha, ha, ha," Borchert chanted. "I was in a bunker, you know. Yes. Of course. Those are reasonable questions. Ha. You may recall when I was in the bunker I was working on my beloved Raquel, who heroically sacrificed herself so that we could all escape together…"

"Okay," Annie said, because it seemed easiest.

"But now I've built Scarlett and she needs data and of course you're uniquely qualified to assist with the calibration. Have you ever seen Blade Runner? It's a movie."

"Yes…"

"Wasn't it great?"

"Sure."

"I mean, Harrison Ford, I knew he was a talent, but he did so much…"

"Absolutely."

"Where was I? Scarlett. Calibration. I just need to put some electrodes on you — totally non-invasive, outside your clothes, don't worry — and ask you some questions, then compare them to the first data set and it'll only take a few minutes. The questions, I mean. It's like the Voight-Kampff Test in Blade Runner."

Annie had no recollection of the Voight-Kampff Test. Blade Runner was one of those sci-fi movies Abed watched; to her they'd all blended together. "Of course," she said.

"So you can do it? Great! Just come over whenever. I'll tell someone to expect you."

On the one hand, Annie liked to think of herself as a good and generous person, and Borchert sounded so eager… on the other hand, he was a weird creepy man with a creepy nipple fixation whose creepy magic door had almost locked her into a version of hell… "Where, exactly?"

"Any time between, oh, nine in the morning and nine at night should be fine. I'm usually here."

"Where?" Annie repeated, with what she thought was admirable patience.

"Oh! The Trapezoid Building. It's at MIT. Very easy to find — it's the one shaped like a trapezoid, you can't miss it. I'm in the top floor. Now the sooner we get this done the better, can you come in this afternoon? This evening? I can stay late if you can't make it until after nine."

"I…" Annie considered. She was pretty sure Vicki owed her a favor. She'd talk to her that night, get Vicki to accompany her into the bowels of MIT and visit the crazy man. The sad crazy man who needed her. "Okay. I can do tomorrow evening I think. Eight thirty?" Wrangling Vicki would be easier later in the day…

"Great! Even better! That will give me plenty of time to set up! I'll see you then!"

It wasn't until he'd hung up that it occurred to Annie to wonder how Borchert knew she was in Boston.

 **ANNIE to JEFF (OLD NUMBER), 1224:**

 **Things just took a turn for the wacky**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Totally serious: I'd love to talk to you about this.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Actually I'd love for you to go there with me.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **I feel like I owe it to him? But I also worry he's deranged.**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **I could use a neurotic strongman to protect me**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

 **Of course you'd probably just disclaim all responsibility and flee**

 **[ERROR MESSAGE NOT DELIVERED]**

* * *

Jeff collapsed into a chair in his hotel room and swore. Somehow an overnight trip to Wilmington, Delaware (corporate litigation capital of the world and all-around boringest city on Earth) had stretched into what was now its third day. Meetings followed meetings followed breaks to review documents followed more meetings. The amount of paperwork required for a multimillion-dollar shareholder suit had, in spite of Jeff's best hopes, turned out to be staggering. According to the specialists Stone had hired, they needed to file multiple briefs, letters, and memoranda with the court, all of which had different requirements. Any formatting error on a submission and the clerk of the court would shred it unread.

It was all the parts of being a lawyer that Jeff hated, compressed into a single weekend that was never going to end. He kept getting pulled into one more meeting, having his train ticket back to Boston cancelled and a new, later one issued, only to be similarly pushed back later in the day.

Keeping him down here like this was costing Via Laser Lotus an arm and a leg, between the billable time and the expenses, but Stone was adamant that the client wanted a Biddle Heath rep sitting in on all the planning meetings, and that the planning meetings had to be in-person, rather than over the phone like in a sane world. In theory Jeff's role as Via Laser Lotus's attorney was to liaise between the specialists and the client, and use his extensive background knowledge of Via Laser Lotus's operations to prevent the specialists from creating any conflicts. However Stone was the only one the client actually spoke to (religious reasons, again, Stone claimed in an email) and Jeff knew less about Laser Lotus than he did aboutInspector Spacetime.

All the time he spent in Delaware was billable, which was great for his hours but ridiculously inefficient. Pulling all the facts together, Jeff couldn't help coming to a single, inescapable, insane conclusion: Pierce was alive and screwing with him.

It was, he conceded to himself, just barely possible that Pierce was dead but had drawn up a set of trustee instructions that foresaw his relocation to Boston. Pierce might be screwing with him from beyond the grave. Couldn't rule that out.

He glanced at his watch. Six o'clock. He had twenty minutes to get downstairs and across the street to another meal with the specialists. In a perfect world, he reflected, he'd spend that time texting with Annie. But his was an imperfect world…

 **JEFF to ABED, 1804:**

 **You got a second?**

Minutes ticked by. Jeff lounged as casually as he could in the hotel room's one easy chair, and played a round of Fruit Ninja, until…

 **ABED to JEFF, 1807:**

 **Sure**

 **JEFF to ABED, 1808:**

 **I'm stuck in Delaware**

 **Probably because Pierce thought it would be funny**

 **ABED to JEFF, 1808:**

 **Did you see Pierce again? Is he a ghost?**

 **JEFF to ABED, 1809:**

 **[Ghost emoji]**

 **What are you doing?**

 **ABED to JEFF, 1810:**

 **That's not a no**

 **I'm editing a scene for the movie**

 **I should get back to it**

 **JEFF to ABED, 1812:**

 **Movie? [Question mark emoji]**

When Abed didn't immediately respond, Jeff resisted the urge to text him again. You're just checking in with a friend, he told himself. Stakes could not be lower.

Still, he loitered in his room longer than he should have, waiting.

 **ABED to JEFF, 1822:**

 **You can see it when it's done**

 **If you wanted daily updates you should have pledged to the Kickstarter**

 **JEFF to ABED, 1823:**

 **Well have fun**

 **I've got to wine and dine a pack of wealthy former English majors.**

 **ABED to JEFF, 1825:**

 **[Cool emoji]**

 **[Cool-cool-cool emoji]**

 **Did I tell you I got custom emojis for my birthday?**

* * *

A sense of foreboding filled Annie as she approached the Biddle Heath offices. Though they were located in the same kind of nondescript Brutalist hulk as the FBI office — nondescript Brutalist hulks dominated the city center — the mood of the place felt different. As she stepped through the doors a strong scent of artificial vanilla struck her, cloying and sticking to her clothes. The source of the perfume, she saw, was a large candle burning in the middle of an ugly fountain, installed right in the middle of the lobby.

"Sign in, please," called a voice from the far end of the large room. Annie glanced that direction and saw a counter, both long and wide, with a single woman seated behind it. She wore a security uniform and had a blandly pleasant expression fixed on her face. The guard tapped a clipboard on the counter in front of her.

Annie frowned at her own disquiet. She was an adult, fully capable, a college graduate even. There was no reason to be frightened of an office lobby, even if she did have a sense that she was about to be ambushed. She strode as confidently as she could manage up to the counter, and entered her name (Annie Edison) and whom she was visiting (she started to write William Stone, but changed it to Biddle Heath when she saw that half of the other guest entries in the log were simply BH) and the time (five after six). She finished with a flourish, and smiled at the security guard.

The guard's expression hadn't altered an iota. "Reception's up on twelve," she said, and pointed to a bank of elevators on one wall of the big empty lobby.

"Thank you," Annie said with all the gravity the occasion deserved.

A short elevator ride later, she stepped out into another, smaller lobby. The receptionist, who might have graduated from high school the same year as Annie, smiled another professional smile at her. "Can I help you?"

"I'm here to see William Stone," Annie told her, ignoring the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. Something about this place was messing with her. Get over it, she instructed herself. It's just an office.

"Oh, Annie Edison?" the receptionist asked brightly. "He's expecting you. If you'll just —"

"Annie Edison?!"

The sound of breaking crockery and someone crying her name with an interrobang diverted Annie's attention away from whatever instructions the receptionist had for her. She spun, finding the source of both sounds standing in a doorway: a small frog-faced man standing over a puddle of coffee and a shattered mug.

Annie reflexively took a step back. "I don't —"

The man started towards her, eyes wide. "Oh my God, I can't — what are you doing here? Why — does he know — what?" he sputtered. "Oh, jeez, mind the spill. Sheila, can we get a —?"

"Yes, of course," the receptionist said, in the placating tone of someone who has cleaned up (or arranged for someone else to clean up) coffee spills many, many times.

"What's the occasion?" The weird man let out a sort of yelp and cried "Jeff's in Delaware!" much louder than was necessary, and in an instant Annie realized something she probably should have guessed already.

"Jeff works here," she said slowly. "At Pierce's law firm." The sense of unease that had been growing since she entered the building suddenly broke over her. Of course Jeff worked there. On some level, she'd realized that before she'd even gone inside. She was in Jeff territory — not enemy territory, exactly, but not somewhere she could let her guard down.

"Pierce? Who?" The soft-skinned man reared back. "I mean, yes, Jeff works here — did you not — he said he and you — my name is Mark, I'm Jeff's best friend, it's amazing to meet you!"

Annie's perspective shifted, as she found a model to use for interacting with Mark: she was talking to a weird East Coast version of the dean. She could handle a weird East Coast version of the dean. "You're Mark… Cash?" she said, accepting his proffered handshake. "Although that's probably not your real name, is it?"

"It's fine, Tango calls me Cash, I call him Tango, it's just this thing we do." Mark glowed with pride and held onto her hand for a fraction of a second longer than Annie was entirely comfortable with. "I'm sorry, I'm just nattering on… can I get you a cup of coffee?" He gestured towards the hallway. "Espresso? Sorbet? Biscotti?"

"I'm fine, thanks," Annie said as Mark led her down the hall. "I'm supposed to be meeting with William Stone…"

"Sure, sure, sure." Mark half-turned as he walked. "I've got to say, it's amazing to finally meet you. We've heard so much — Eleanor and I — and here you are in the flesh!"

"Here I am," Annie agreed. "Um, what have you heard, exactly?"

"Oh, you know." Mark chuckled. "You're the greatest woman on earth, he never loved before and never will again, you're too perfect for this fallen world. Standard guy stuff."

Annie frowned. "Uh huh."

"Seriously, he's got it bad for you — you know that, I'm sure, you know how he is. Don't need me to tell you, get enough drinks in him and he refuses to talk about anything else."

Annie scoffed. "That doesn't really sound like Jeff…"

"Well," Mark admitted, "he does require some prodding, that's true. I said to him, Tango, you need to…"

Annie nodded absently. To hear Mark tell it, Jeff had improvised multiple blank-verse soliloquies on how he was her devoted slave, which didn't much match the man who'd fled Colorado rather than have a conversation with her. How many times had she tried to get Jeff to just talk with her? Each time he'd evaded or dissembled. Eventually she'd reached a breaking point, and that had been the end of the story, until —

Eventually she'd reached a breaking point, and that was the end of the story.

Except that was wishful thinking, obviously, because he was still constantly at the forefront of her thoughts. And she knew why he'd done what he did; she didn't need anyone to explain it to her. Jeff couldn't handle loving her, he assumed she would leave him and break his heart, and so he'd fled. It was the same strategy she'd seen from him so many times before: make a decision about Annie without consulting her, refuse to talk to her about it, deny that there'd even been a decision to make. Her whole long torrid history with Jeff Winger was the story of a man jerking a woman around…

But then, Vicki and Quendra had thought she and Jeff were dating, or had been dating a few years ago, sophomore, junior, senior year. She'd seen how unhappy he became, as she'd pulled away from him last fall. His heart-wants-what-it-wants speech aside, there'd been an electricity between them, that last week they'd spent together. And now a man she'd never met before was claiming Jeff had spent the last month, at least, pining for her.

Mark was still talking. "…First and inches, I told him, because it's blindingly obvious that if half of his stories are true than you're… oh." Mark stopped short and broke off his monologue as Stone abruptly appeared in an office doorway, silent and grim. "Will, this is Annie! Jeff's Annie!" Mark exulted.

Annie let out an involuntary little squeak. She cringed at her own embarrassing sound, hoping neither Mark nor Stone had noticed it. What had Jeff actually told Mark, that he would call her 'Jeff's Annie' so freely?

"Of course. Ms. Edison, so good to see you again." Stone spoke like a funeral director. He also wore a severe dark suit like a funeral director, some irreverent part of Annie observed. "If you'll join me in my office?"

Mark stood like a man who needed to use the restroom, shifting his weight from one leg to another. His face bore a pained expression. "I know it's… would either of you mind if I sat in on this? I'd love to be read into whatever —"

Stone raised a hand. "Sorry, Mark, not this time." He gave Annie a chilly look. "Please, come in."

At this point, Annie decided, there wasn't anything more that could shock her. She was fully shocked out. Done with the being shocked. Just 100% done. No more shocks left in her. She nodded solemnly to Stone, and stepped into his darkened office.

As Stone followed her in and closed the door, leaving Mark still out in the hallway, Annie discovered that she did, in fact, have one more shock left in her.

"Hello, Annie," said Pierce.


	13. Too Busy Moping

"I didn't like that one. Let me try it again. Three, two… Hello, Annie."

Pierce sat behind a sumptuous rosewood desk, in front of a wide case full of expensive, lawyery-looking books. His eyes were sharp behind his glasses, and the suit he wore was surprisingly well-cut and fashionable. He had a smirk on his face Annie recognized — Pierce's I know better than any of you idiots look. "I'd ask how you've been, but, well, you know."

The camera zoomed out slightly, showing the edge of a windowframe over Pierce's left shoulder, beyond which a snow-covered landscape gradually became visible.

"If you're viewing this, well, it means several things. First, I'm dead. I'd like to assume I died heroically, fending off a band of freelance terrorists as they tried to hold an entire elementary school hostage, or wrestling a rabid panda, but of course I can't see the future. I might have died more prosaically — crushed under the press of bodies at an orgy in Palo Alto, or of a sudden heart attack triggered by the news that aliens were real and had blown up Euro Disney as a show of their beneficence. Maybe I died of disease, or maybe Jeff murdered me out of jealousy. My point is, I'm gone."

Annie turned to Stone, standing behind her. "What is this?"

"Well, he…" Stone sighed, and gestured weakly back towards the screen on his desk.

Pierce hadn't waited for questions. "When my father died I found out he'd left me a complex eight-player video game that I had to conquer to earn his love and my inheritance. You remember that; you were there. I didn't agree with my father about a lot of things. He was a bitter and cruel man, his prejudices were shortsighted and he didn't even like Moose Tracks ice cream. But the idea of leaving my fortune to various heirs through the mechanism of a complex game? That I liked."

Annie turned again towards Stone. "How did you —"

"At my bequest, probably several weeks ago now, you and your friends were told that I'd left almost my entire fortune, fourteen million dollars, to Troy. Not completely true." Pierce tented his fingers. "Troy needs a kick in the pants to get out of his rut. Fourteen million is a lot of money, but it's not the bulk of my family fortune. No, the bulk of my family fortune goes to you."

"What kind of lies did —?" Annie spun and shot Stone a dirty look before turning quickly back to the screen.

"You've made something of yourself already. I worried that just dumping riches in your lap would mess up your life plan, so I told my lawyers to watch you and wait. As soon as you'd used the seed capital from selling the tiara I left you to make something of yourself — as soon as you had shaken off the dust of Greendale Community College, as soon as you'd rid yourself of them, they were to find you and play you this recording. 'Them' being Aybed and Britta and Shirley and Winger. 'They' being my lawyers." He made a sour face. "You're watching the recording, I assume, so that must have worked out. I don't know exactly what your current situation is, but I expect it's one that would be improved by the infusion of fifty million dollars. If you don't want it you can give it to charity, or pay for therapy for Winger so he can admit to being gay, or you can buy a whole lot of puppies with it, I don't know. It's money. Everybody needs money."

Pierce leaned forward in his chair. "Confidentially, I've always thought there was something up between the two of you — you and Winger, I mean. I'm sure no one else has noticed it. You probably haven't noticed yourselves. But life is short. Give it some due consideration."

"Yes, Pierce, everyone else noticed it, too. Even Jeff," Annie told the screen. "Eventually and half-heartedly, but he did."

Pierce failed to respond, instead silently staring ahead as though she hadn't spoken.

Stone cleared his throat. "It's a recording," he said. "I assumed that was obvious."

Annie rolled her eyes. "Yes, I know it's a recording, I was just —"

"That should be enough time for the revelatory wisdom about your personal life, that I just dropped, to sink in," Pierce announced. "I wanted to put that in before I forgot about it, it doesn't have anything to do with the treasure hunt. Oh?" Pierce's eyes widened theatrically. "The treasure hunt, you ask? The treasure hunt, did I just say twice now? Three times? Yes. Treasure hunt. I didn't want to copy Dad by making another video game, so I'm doing him one better and putting the secrets out… in the world." Pierce gestured grandly. "I've hidden clues throughout the world, leading only the cleverest, uh, Annie… I thought about making it a race between you and Aybed but then I thought maybe Aybed would win and I don't want Aybed to inherit, I want you to inherit. Don't get me wrong, I like Aybed, and I think you're a safe bet, with your crafty Jew brain… sorry, your crafty Jew-ish brain…" Pierce shook his head. "Never mind. My point is there's a bunch of clues and you follow the clues to the treasure. It's pretty straightforward. I have my lawyers all lined up to ensure it goes smoothly. Now, the first clue will play immediately after this video ends. Good-bye, Annie. You were always my favorite. Kick Jeff's ass!" Pierce pumped his fist, then added "He'll probably enjoy it."

Pierce winked at her — at the camera. "Iris out, three, two, cut to the graphic…" He stood up from the chair. "I think we'll use that take," he told someone offscreen. "I liked that one. But just for safety, let's do one where —"

The screen suddenly went blank.

"And that's it," Stone said from behind Annie. The VCR remote control was in his hand. He flipped the lights of his office back on, and crossed the room to his desk.

While Stone adjusted the monitors on his desk back to their usual configuration, Annie stood there and tried to make sense of what she'd just seen. "What…?"

"Despite what Pierce says in that recording, there is no first clue," Stone told her apologetically. "He intended there to be, but never got around to making it. Or any of the other clues he would have scattered."

"What?"

"He got as far as buying a couple of books of cryptic crosswords, I know that much. But…" Stone made an oh well what are you gonna do sort of gesture. "He wanted to edit that video himself, too, but, well, you can see how far he got with it."

"So… wait." Annie slid into a seat. "There's not a treasure hunt?"

"Oh, there's a treasure hunt all right." Stone chuckled. "There's definitely a treasure hunt. Find the treasure and you inherit Pierce's fortune. There just aren't any clues."

Annie folded her arms. "What, exactly, do you mean?"

Stone ticked items off on his fingers. "Find the treasure, inherit the fortune…. No clues… Use your crafty Jewish brain, I guess?" He chuckled again, a little more nervously. "That's all I have for you."

She stared at him.

"You can see why I needed you to come in and see it in person," Stone said.

* * *

The elevator doors had only begun to open when Jeff slid out between them and swept across his office's lobby. "Good morning, Jeff!" Sheila called as he rushed past her towards Stone's office. "Back from Wilmington?"

He ignored her, not because he had anything against Sheila, but Jeff was focused on other things. The whole train ride up Jeff had been turning it all over and over in his head, and he needed to unload on Stone quickly, before he lost any of his momentum.

Pierce jerking him around like this — whether from beyond the grave or from a secret bunker in New Zealand with Elvis and Michele Miscavige and Lord Lucan — was unacceptable. Stone participating and aiding him was beyond the pale. Literally everything Jeff had done over three days and four nights in Delaware could have been accomplished with email and telephone calls, and not very many of them. The more Jeff thought about it, the more certain he was that the whole Via Laser Lotus case was a smokescreen. The name was a dead giveaway. He'd been played with enough; Jeff Winger had had enough! The night before, after an evening of swapping Dungeons & Dragons stories with his co-counsel (he'd been unsurprised to learn that these most nerdy of lawyers were all D&D enthusiasts), Jeff had made an executive decision. He'd taken the first train north the next morning, and arrived in Boston before lunch.

It wasn't far from reception to Stone's office, but before Jeff could close that short distance Mark appeared in his path. "Jeff!" he cried, his face a mix of excitement and concern. "You're back? I thought you weren't getting back until tonight —"

"No time to explain, buddy," Jeff said, as he tried and failed to sidestep Mark in the hall. "I need to talk to Will ASAP."

"Okay, great, but there's like three things you should know first —"

"Whatever it is, it can wait until —"

"It's about Annie!"

Jeff stopped trying to bull rush past his friend. "What?" A litany of possible disasters flashed through his mind — Annie hit by a car or shot foiling a mugging. Annie eloping with a stranger would be… well, not as bad as her death, by any means, but… Dread chilled Jeff; had he missed his final chance with her? "Is she okay?" he whispered urgently, tugging at Mark's lapel.

Mark tilted his head towards his office.

Jeff nodded. There were a half-dozen more people — lawyers, paralegals, and office assistants — in earshot than were needed for this conversation.

Once in his office, Mark closed the door. "First off, she's fine. As far as I know, at least. And she accepted my friend requests on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, so, I'd know. I met her yesterday."

"You met her?" Jeff felt his face redden. "What did you —"

"I didn't do anything! She came here! She came here to meet with Will." Mark pointed in the general direction of Stone's office. "He called her in, wouldn't say why. I met her out at reception, or I wouldn't have even known. I hope I'm not out of line saying she's almost as gorgeous as you led me to believe, by the way…"

"Will called her?" Jeff scowled. It had to be Pierce. Pierce was alive, Stone was Pierce's agent, Pierce had gotten him out of town while Stone pulled whatever weird trick Pierce had put him up to...

Mark nodded. "I don't know what about, he's under strict confidentiality orders to keep it separate from the rest of the firm, apparently. And after she wouldn't say, either, although she was pretty upset, I know that much…"

Jeff felt ill. Pierce had pulled some kind of sick law-related shenanigan on Annie, messing with her from beyond the maybe-grave, in Jeff's own office, and Jeff had been out of town. And Annie hadn't contacted him about it, the way they left things… "I'll call her," he said aloud.

"Tango, you know I love ya and I'm on your side, here," Mark said. "I think you should call her." He blinked. "I mean, yes, good. Good! You do that —"

"Right after I talk to Will Stone."

"About the Laser Lotus deposition schedule?" Mark asked, referring to a small storm of emails that had been sent among the various Laser Lotus attorneys that morning. "That's not as important as —"

"No, no, nothing to do with… it's Pierce Hawthorne," Jeff declared, figuring he could trust Mark if he could trust anyone. "I'm sure of it. Pierce set this whole thing up to mess with me. I told you about his Laser Lotus Buddha church thing."

Mark nodded. "You did, yeah. Okay. You want me in there with you?"

Jeff actually had to think about it for a second, which on some level surprised him — he'd forgotten what it was like having Mark watching his back. "Nah," he said. "Will's more likely to open up to just me than to both of us."

"Well, I'll walk you over."

Mark followed Jeff out of his office and down the hall the short distance to Stone's office. The door was ajar, but the lights inside were off.

"Damn it," muttered Jeff.

"Hey Andrea!" Mark called down the hall. "Have you seen Will today?"

* * *

The morning had gone by in a blur. Annie struggled to focus on her work, but Pierce's bizarre message from beyond the grave was understandably distracting. Once upon a time Annie Edison had dealt with stress through compartmentalizing: when she was working she was working, when she was fretting she was fretting, and she allowed herself a five-minute panic break every hour of studying. But all that seemed a lifetime ago, now.

She'd texted Jeff a dozen times about it, getting no response, of course, since she was sending them to his old number. She considered texting him at his new number, so he would actually read the messages, but then what would his response be? Which Jeff would respond?

 **JEFF (BUT NOT REALLY) to ANNIE, i:**

 **Sorry no can do**

 **I'm too busy moping about how I'm aging to help you**

 **Nothing matters and I'm drunk at nine in the morning**

 **JEFF (BUT NOT REALLY) to ANNIE, i:**

 **I'll help you with this on the condition that you sleep with me**

 **Because I am literally fourteen years old**

 **PS Britta is having my baby**

 **JEFF (BUT NOT REALLY) to ANNIE, i:**

 **I'd love to help you! You're very important to me!**

 **Unfortunately I have to move to South Dakota, goodbye forever!**

 **[Heart emoji] [hug emoji] [kiss emoji]**

She tried hard to focus on her work, because whenever she let herself get distracted from the task in front of her, one of the various crises at the edge of her life began to intrude. At lunchtime she decided that ignoring the crises was just letting the crises win, so she did what she always did in crisis mode: she made a list.

LIST OF CRISES

1\. Jeff is in town and being weirdly hot-and-cold

2\. Pierce left me tens of millions of dollars but I have to solve a puzzle to get it; puzzle is literally insoluble because Pierce never wrote it

3\. Vicki is cheating on Neil and making me complicit

4\. Joe Brown was apparently some kind of stalker

The order of the crises was carefully selected. If nothing else was going on, Jeanne's weird story about Joe Brown would have been driving her to distraction. Vicki's personal life trumped that, because Vicki had access to where Annie slept. Sitting Vicki down and explaining to her Pierce's bizarre bequest would, Annie was confident, have convinced her roommate to table any and all plans to connive Annie into helping her hide her infidelity. But she couldn't handle any of that right now, because of stupid Jeff Winger.

She needed an action plan. She needed first of all to deal with Jeff. Then she'd know how to approach Pierce's thing, which would tell her what to do with Vicki, and by the time she got that low on the list of priorities she'd have all the confidence she needed to cast aside her Joe Brown-related concerns like so much dust in the wind.

Dealing with Jeff meant tricking him into meeting her somewhere she could control — someplace she could grill him without him fleeing, someplace he couldn't weasel out of. She had a brief vision of him in an FBI interrogation room, cuffed to a table while she patiently asked him to go over his story just one more time… Unrealistic. Probably unnecessary. He'd wanted to date her, after all.

He had wanted to date her, hadn't he? She mulled it over, recalling what he'd said and what he hadn't, what he'd apparently told Mark. Mark his confidant who seemed to think the two of them were star-crossed lovers (Annie and Jeff, not Annie and Mark. Or Jeff and Mark, for that matter). And how they left things… for once the ball was in her court. All she needed to do was call him and she'd be in control. She'd tell him to meet her, someplace she knew and he didn't — the coffee shop, maybe. She'd give him one chance, no more, to win her over…

As she sat there, eating yogurt and reflecting on what hoops, exactly, she would make him jump through… her phone chirped.

 **JEFF (NEW!) to ANNIE, 1218**

 **INCOMING CALL**

 **SLIDE TO ACCEPT**

Dammit dammit dammit. Let it go to voicemail. Show him that she wouldn't just leap up when he snapped his fingers… "Hello?"

"Annie." He sounded relieved.

"Jeff," she said cautiously. She felt her heart rate increase.

"I'm back from Wilmington and I'd like to meet you at your earliest convenience. Shit. That sounded…" He sighed. "Just… whenever you're up for it, I'd really like to sit down and talk. Wherever you want."

Annie almost dropped the phone. "There's, um. There's a coffee shop by my apartment. It's in Somerville."

"I don't know where that is." Apologetic, that's how he sounded now. "Can you give me the address? When do you want to meet? You don't have to say right —"

"Tonight," she interjected. "I'll text you the address. It's open until nine, so… Seven?"

"Absolutely!" he said quickly. "Seven. It's a date. I mean —"

"Yeah —"

"Right, I didn't —"

"Sure, sure —"

"So I'll see you then?!" Jeff's voice twisted upwards.

"Yes?!" Annie's voice, to be fair, was doing the same thing.

"Bye then?!"

"Loveyoubye!" Dammit dammit dammit. Annie hung up quickly before she embarrassed herself further.


	14. A Less Creepy Version of That

You know that's how I end calls with my grandmother, right? Don't read too much into that.

"It's not something she said before…"

Which just goes to show you how much her view of you has changed. Imaginary Annie pursed her imaginary lips in a sad, sympathetic imaginary smile. You're like a sexless robot butler.

Jeff scowled. "You're reading a lot into a little. That's obviously not how she meant that."

Oh? You think she meant that she wants to marry you and get a house together and build a life and she's a stay-at-home mom and you work at Greendale and you get to kiss her whenever you want and you have a son named Sebastian? Now who's reading a lot into a little?

As soon as he was off the phone with Annie, Jeff began to worry. He hadn't expected her to suggest that evening — tomorrow, or the next day, or the coming weekend. She'd been upset when he'd seen her last. Maybe she'd come around — maybe she wanted to see him, actively wanted it. Or maybe that was wishful thinking.

Wishful thinking is about the worst thing you can be doing right now. You need to face reality. You need to bear down, okay? It's midterms, Winger, and this is sudden death overtime. The jury's clearly on the fence. You need to get the eight ball into the pocket. Sink the putt.

That afternoon, in between calls, he ran through talking-to-Annie drills.

Okay, we're at a coffee shop. I'm there when you get in, sitting with the latte I've already ordered, he imagined Annie suggesting. Go.

"I smile and approach you. I shake your hand… no, I just give a little wave, you're seated and I need to get coffee or something before I can sit down. I walk over, say hi, give the little wave, then I buy a cup of coffee."

What kind? It's a coffee shop — you can get espresso ristretto, a macchiato, chai, some kind of mocha bullshit, decaf…

"Decaf," he mused, glad his office had a door that closed so he could sit at his desk and talk to himself without fear of ridicule. "It'll be evening, after all."

Decaf is for old people, Imaginary Annie asserted. You want her to start off thinking about how old you are? The Annie of his mind's eye clucked her tongue in a way he'd never seen Real Annie do, but which felt appropriate.

"Chai latte, then." A solid choice, he felt — au courant and trendy.

Unless it's passé, warned Imaginary Annie. Maybe a chai latte would make you look like a desperate old man trying to cling to his faded youth.

So something timeless, conservative but not archaic. A soy latte. Plus a soy latte was familiar; it'd put him on an even keel.

All right. Soy latte. You order it, then what? Sit down immediately or stand at the counter and wait for it?

Jeff frowned. He didn't know the layout of the place, or where Annie would be sitting.

We'll have to come up with another plan if she isn't there when you arrive. Which is likely — there's a solid chance she's going to stand you up, another solid chance she'll be late because this is so much more important to you than to her. Still, let's try to get through this scenario before we move on.

Sitting immediately after ordering made the most sense, Jeff decided. Otherwise he might seem like he was malingering, or he didn't want to see her.

Great. You've successfully entered the coffee shop, ordered, and sat down. Now we're staring at each other, Imaginary Annie said. She pantomimed sipping from a cup she held close to her face with both hands, elbows on a table. Say something!

"Hi," Jeff said. He felt stupid. "How have you been?"

Ugh. Imaginary Annie scowled at him. Your small talk sucks. That's why you used to pretend to be texting someone all the time. Come on!

"Maybe we skip the small talk."

You want to just jump right in to the heavy stuff, not make any attempt to put me at ease? Are you serious?

"Okay, yeah." Jeff thought back to their previous meeting. "Christ, I don't know anything about her life here. She works for the FBI at their office downtown. It's a really low-level job, I remember that from when she first told me about it." He glanced at the map of Somerville he'd called up on his phone. "She lives someplace fairly near the bus line."

Start with that, Imaginary Annie instructed him. What's her living situation? Does she have a roommate? Just don't be creepy when you ask, like you're hinting she should move in with you. That would be weird and crazy and bad.

"Well, obviously," grumbled Jeff. "I'm not going to say anything that stupid."

We both know you're going to put your foot in your mouth somehow. It's just a question of how. Imaginary Annie sighed. Look, I care about you. I don't want you miserable. I'm nice enough to let you be part of my life, provided you don't get creepy or scare me off.

"I know."

And by 'part of my life' I don't mean a lover or a boyfriend, I just mean a friend. Someone who can help me move. Someone who will feed my cat when I'm out of town, if I ever get a cat. Someone who'll sit on the bride's side of the hall at my wedding to New Jeff, summer after next —

Jeff winced. He'd forgotten about New Jeff.

New Jeff is still on the table, she warned. You're going in blind. So small talk introductory topics: the nature of her work. Her living situation. How she's adapting to the East Coast in general, Boston stuff. Maybe have an anecdote ready to go — 'hey, remember that time you pretended to be my wife and I couldn't even pretend to be angry, I just wanted to reassure you that I'd never cheat on you?' No, bad choice. 'Hey, remember that time we did Model UN and you still couldn't legally drink and I was really struggling with how into you I was?' Better, not great. Imaginary Annie held up a finger and beamed. 'Hey, remember that time you helped City College steal the Greendale Community College space simulator? The Eleven Herbs & Space Experience?' That's a good one — no subtext to the anecdote at all.

He nodded wearily.

Although I did sort of lie to the group and collude with City College, Imaginary Annie mused. But mostly you think of it as a time you really noticed Troy and Britta making eyes at each other, and Pierce was being nutty. So good enough. If I bring up the betrayal thing, you can sidestep it. And then we'll move on to the heavy stuff — you apologizing to me, she continued. Lay it on me.

"Annie," Jeff said. "I'm so sorry that…"

Come on, chop chop.

"I'm sorry I left Greendale without talking to you. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But we can't just run from our problems; I see that now —"

So I'm a problem? I'm a problem you ran from? Or are you saying that I ran from you, when I left you for the FBI? Or earlier, when I stopped treating you like you were more important to me than Britta or Abed?

"I…"

Start again, Imaginary Annie ordered. She gave him a sad look. I'm saying this because I love you. I want to forgive you, remember.

"I'm sorry I left without talking to you. I knew you'd talk me out of it, and I didn't think I could bear being your friend any longer…"

Really? Couldn't bear being my friend. Really.

"Instead of lover!"

Lover?

"Okay, a less creepy version of that."

Jeff, we've gone over this. I love you and I want to forgive you, but I don't want you as a lover. You're my friend.

"Christ. This was a bad idea."

This rehearsal, or meeting her at all?

"Both. I'm severely overthinking this." He closed his eyes. "I'll be honest," Jeff decided. "Honest and unrehearsed."

Makes sense. Imaginary Annie nodded. That's the usual advice for approaching juries, after all. Don't rehearse. Oh wait no it's the opposite of that —

"Worst case scenario I'm in the same place I was last week — out of her life, with no clear route back into it."

* * *

Britta was a half-hour or so into a paper-writing jag when her phone rang. She glanced at the display, then did a double take before picking it up and answering. "Annie? Hello?"

"Hi, how are you?" Annie's plastered-on smile was almost visible through the phone.

"I'm okay… what's up?" Britta glanced at her watch. Four thirty Mountain time; dinnertime on the East Coast, but still kind of early for Annie to be calling.

"Do you have a minute?" She sounded anxious, but this was Annie; she sounded anxious most of the time.

Britta looked down at the three-quarters-written psych paper in her lap. "Sure, I could use a break." She cleared her throat. "Listen, I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Jeff being in Boston. I was going to! I mean, he didn't tell me not to, I don't think —" she didn't really remember. "And even if he did, girl solidarity, right?"

"It's okay. I should have called you sooner, I wanted to talk to you about Jeff, actually."

Britta grimaced. This wasn't a topic they'd ever really tackled. "Uh."

"We've never… have we ever really talked about it? I mean, kind of the last time I was in Greendale, but not really, you know?"

"Have you been talking to him? Does he know you're there? I swear I didn't tell him —"

"I know, I know," Annie said quickly. "I talked to him a little last week, and we're meeting tonight. In about a half an hour."

"Oh, wow." Britta crossed her legs, the half-completed paper sliding to the floor. "So, uh, what can I do for you? You need dirt on him? You're probably the only person who knows him better than I do."

"That's just it! I don't know him. I thought I did, and maybe once I did, but now? It's like there's a bunch of different Jeff Wingers and I don't know which one is real. If any of them are. Ever since he turned forty, I guess."

"Hmm. So…?"

"Tell me about him. Tell me about him like I don't know him. Or, no. Tell me about him like I haven't seen him since senior year. Like I'm the hiring manager for a prestigious white-shoe law firm in New York and he listed you as a character reference."

"So I should lie?"

"What? No! Just… who is he now?" Annie asked frantically. "Frankie said the other day that when I look at him I'm seeing him the way he used to be, and she knows him now —"

"Maybe Frankie would be a better person to ask?"

"You know him, though. Please?"

"Okay." Britta took a deep breath. "When you last saw Jeff, he was… what, he had graduated, given a heartwarming speech like he used to do, and then he went off to be a hero lawyer."

"Yes!"

"He kind of stopped returning calls or responding to texts, like, right away. He said he was too busy with his law practice getting started to hang out. I think he texted you a little more than me…"

"Probably, yeah. He didn't like to talk about his work, and he'd get all distant."

"Right. So, then Abed called me and we met back at Greendale, and Jeff was there, and you were too. He was tired and angry in way he hadn't been, but he was really glad to see you."

"To see everybody."

"Yeah, no. He was still doing the chair thing. He'd sit at his spot next to me, but his whole body would be pointed away from me, right at you."

"I remember how he used to sit," Annie said slowly, "but that was just because he was kind of in a corner and he wanted to be facing everybody."

"Nope. The way he sat when you were there, he had to turn his head whenever he looked at me or Troy or Abed. And he sat normal if you weren't there."

"Hm."

"And, I mean, I thought you and he were… on the same page? Like, you were lava joust buddies. And you took his class and made him actually teach…"

"I didn't make him. I convinced him that he was better than the version of himself he was presenting to his students…"

"He didn't do it for his students," Britta said firmly. "He did it for you. He'd do anything for you."

"I don't that's… okay. Taking that as read, how did you feel about it? Honestly."

"Honestly? It pissed me off. The whole time Jeff and I were sleeping together —"

Annie interrupted with a gasp. "You and Jeff were sleeping together the whole time?!"

"What? No! I mean, you remember." Britta closed her eyes and shook her head. "Uh, sophomore year. The whole time we were doing that, he made it clear that he might have been sleeping with me, but when it came to doing stuff together, he preferred you. He hated that one guy —"

"Rich."

"Yeah! He hated Rich, he hated that you were into Rich, and I don't know what happened with that. That was when the sex got really bad."

"What?"

"I mean, it was no great shakes to begin with, to be honest, but towards the end he just… it was clear he'd rather be doing something else besides having sex with me. It wasn't real hard to break it off, when we did, because of that. I mean, I knew you had a crush on him, and I guess that made him seem… you know all this. Do we have to rehash it?"

"No, no, we don't. We got off track — we were talking about after he started teaching."

"Yeah." Britta swallowed. "He was pretty clearly into you, if you were worried you'd imagined that."

"I know," Annie said quietly. "Were you okay with that?"

"I didn't have any right to be upset — first I was with Troy, and then we parted amicably, and Jeff had moved on… except that he hadn't because he'd been stuck on you the whole time. I was kind of bitter about it then, I guess, but we're talking years ago. By the time you're talking about, after he started teaching? Mostly I thought he was a jerk for jerking you around. And that you were stupid for letting him."

"Uh huh."

"But I guess it worked for you, and I didn't think I was in any position to say anything, so I didn't talk to him or you about it. I talked to Shirley about it, once. Right after Troy left she and I went out to dinner and we got all weepy about Troy being gone… or I did. Shirley said she thought Jeff and I were cute together, and I said Jeff's big problem with me was that I wasn't you, and she said that you were too good for Jeff, and I said what does that say about me, and… we were kind of drunk." Britta paused, remembering. "And then Jeff turned forty."

"Yeah."

"You were there, so… he scared the crap out of all of us. And he was like five years older than I thought he was." Britta tried to think of an answer to Annie's question. "I remember thinking that it had to be really hard on you, because of what you went through with Adderall."

"It was kind of the worst thing," Annie agreed quietly. "I thought of him as always being so strong, nothing could get past his defenses. When I found him on the floor… it was… it was awful."

Britta murmured agreement. "Yeah. I guess I thought, 'oh, he's actually forty, not thirty-five, that's why he and Annie aren't together.' Or I didn't think that, it just kind of went into the back of my head and I didn't question it. As if five years is a big difference, I mean, ten years versus fifteen, what's that matter?"

Annie made a neutral hmm sound. "Well, then you agreed to marry him."

"I didn't… yes. We were talking, and it was like, me and Jeff were the two people who'd been through it all together. The whole group, yeah, but you and Abed were younger, Troy was already gone, Shirley was older —"

"Shirley is actually the same age as Jeff."

"Okay. Yes. She seems older, though, you know? Don't tell her I said that. In the moment, me and Jeff were — it was like, we'd been through all the Greendale stuff, and what were we getting out of it, and we were in the same boat, too old to spring back easily from it all, and Jeff said we should get married because it was what people did when stuff happened."

Annie didn't say anything.

"I've actually been thinking about it, since we talked about it before, when you left," Britta continued doggedly. "I'm sure that if you had been in the room he would have… I don't know what, exactly, if he would have proposed to you in the same singularly unromantic fashion that he proposed to me, but whatever he did, it would have been with you, and I would have watched."

"You think?"

"And I kind of wish — I really wish that would have been what happened, because maybe that would have been the shove you two needed to move forward."

"Maybe we all would have been trapped in that stupid bunker for days or weeks."

"Yeah, well, small price to pay for you guys not going so badly off the rails, okay?" Britta retorted. "I mean, look what it did to him. And maybe it would have worked out the same. Jeff put on a magic helmet and thought about how much he loved Greendale, or played with himself, or whatever, and the doors opened up."

"Yes, fine." Annie felt indescribably weary, and they'd only just then finally gotten to the important part. "After that I took a step back from Jeff. Different kind of moving forward."

"I kind of figured you two talked about it," Britta said. "There was this whole different energy between you all of a sudden, like, he was sad and drunk and you were looking at everything in the room that wasn't him. Did you really never talk about it?"

"After a year," Annie said, a little irritably. "But I didn't think anyone else noticed that I wasn't — that I wasn't reaching out to Jeff. I wasn't sure he noticed."

"He noticed. He never talked to me about it, but he'd look at you, sometimes, when you weren't looking at him, and I could see it. He didn't say anything to me about it. I guess he was embarrassed about the whole stupid engagement thing. Which, you know, I forgot about that as soon as we were out of the bunker. But I thought, and I guess he thought too, that you'd moved on."

"I had," Annie said. "I had moved on. Then the day I found out about the internship he — we talked, a little bit, and then it was like all of that never happened, all summer it was like it used to be, texting and stuff, and then I got the job and he was gone."

"He really changed over the summer," Britta recalled. "Pulled himself together, some. Jeff stopped drinking so much, just — bzzzt! — no more. Notno more. But way less." She thought a moment. "Not during the day, on school days. And he started working on his classes again — you said you got him to do that, which I figured, that meant you were buddies again.

"I was glad. You both seemed happier when you were doing stuff together. I was also kind of jealous, okay? Not of Jeff — he's not the guy for me, we both deserve better. But… jealous of you. I mean, uh… you made him want to be this version of Jeff that was good enough for you. I never got him, or any man, to do that."

"Troy…" Annie began, and trailed off.

"I guess, but I was always the other woman in that relationship, too… ugh. I don't know. Jeff is, well, he's not the guy for me, I know that much."

They were both quiet, for a little while, and Britta wondered if she'd been cut off.

Annie broke the silence just as Britta was about to start going hello? "So, um, I'm about to go meet him for coffee."

"Like, a date?"

"No. I don't know. Maybe. No. I changed clothes for it."

"Good luck," said Britta. "I mean, really. I want you to be happy. I don't know if he's the guy for you or not, but I want you both to be happy and you need to work some stuff out together. Good luck, okay?"

"Thanks, Britta. That means a lot." Annie made a little cheery sigh sound into the phone. "Girls?"

"Can I confess something to you? I don't really get the 'girls' thing," Britta said.

"Yeah, me neither," Annie admitted. "It sounds better when Shirley does it. But, you know I really do appreciate your support."


	15. Mi--

  
Chapter Text

Annie's coffee shop was smaller than Jeff had expected, with tightly-packed tables and chairs all of dark wood. He looked around, taking in as much as he could without betraying his discomfort. No Annie — that was the first thing he noted. Just a coffee shop. The man behind the counter, a guy with thinning hair who brought to mind the word 'portly,' greeted him with a nod. A woman in the corner farthest from the door glanced up from her laptop as he came in, then quickly went back to it. Otherwise the place was empty.

He ordered a soy latte, paid, and sat watching the door. He'd gotten there fifteen minutes early, erring on the side of caution when it came to accounting for traffic.

After five minutes of drumming his fingers and wondering whether he was just going to sit there, alone, until the coffee shop closed at nine, it occurred to Jeff that he still had Fruit Ninja on his phone. He dug it out of his jacket pocket and started playing; Annie came in twenty seconds later.

God, she looked good. He tried and failed to resist the urge to stare. Sharp suit, string of pearls — had she changed clothes, or was this what she wore to work every day? New Jeff was a lucky man, either way. Her hair hung down, swinging as she walked in a way he found hypnotic.

She smiled as she approached his table, and he realized how he must look — eyes wide, drinking in the sight of her like a camel preparing to cross the desert. He blinked, and straightened up.

"Hi," he said, returning her smile.

"Hey." Annie sat down across from him, maintaining eye contact. Was she aware what her posture did to her… chest… when she sat like that? She knew what effect she had on him, surely, the spark in her eyes gave that away. What had happened to her, in the months since they'd spent time together in Colorado? How had she become diamond-hard and white hot?

"So, Jeff," she began, her voice rich, "what's —"

"Excuse me!" The barista (Was barista gendered? Was the guy a baristo?) cleared his throat. "Did you want to order something?"

Jeff saw her flinch, and in an instant the illusion was broken, and she was the Annie he knew again; the Annie he desired and loved. No less appealing, just because he could see she wasn't as invulnerable as she'd seemed at first.

Annie swallowed, and gave Jeff a tight smile and a one second hand signal, before rising and ordering a decaf.

"It's really good to see you," Jeff said as she sat down once more. "I, uh, I want to apologize, first off, for how I acted the other day."

"The other day?" she repeated quizzically. "Do you mean when you invited me to a steak and/or lobster dinner?"

"Well, judging by your reaction it was the wrong move at the time," he replied. "You'll note I didn't compound the mistake by trying to pay for your drink."

She laughed, awkwardly, endearingly. "You're always willing to go the extra mile, when the extra mile involves not doing something."

"Well…" Jeff smiled sheepishly. "For you, I'm even willing to do a thing."

"Sometimes." Annie looked at him and he could see the gears turning.

His smile faded. Quickly, before Annie could rain her truth-bombs down on him, he asked, "Do you remember the Eleven Herbs & Space Experience?"

"What?"

"The space simulator. It was stolen, Abed was locked out, Pierce was acting crazy… fun times. Fun times," he repeated slowly. "Fun times."

Annie said nothing. She looked down in the direction of Jeff's coffee cup, her lips pressed tightly together. "Okay," she finally said, as though conceding a point. "We can both be dishonest. Or… what are you getting at?"

"I drove past a KFC this morning," he lied. "It reminded me of the space Winnebago. It was fun times, is all."

"The time I betrayed Greendale," Annie said flatly. She folded her arms.

Fortunately Jeff had run drills for this eventuality. "Sorry. I wasn't thinking about that part," he assured her. "I was thinking about the rest of it. The hilarious-in-retrospect memories. That you and I share."

"Okay." Annie's expression softened, although she didn't unfold her arms. "We've got a lot of those."

"Yeah," he agreed eagerly. "Absolutely."

She nodded, and the memories hung between them like a curtain.

"Last time we talked, properly talked, was back in the middle of August," Jeff said. "You'd just been offered the permanent job in, uh, Boston it turns out…"

Annie nodded again, almost imperceptibly.

"So what's happened since then?" he asked, before she could say one of the many thousands of possible responses that would have led to a screaming fight. "You moved. Or you have a frankly ridiculous commute, splitting your time between Greendale and, uh, Boston."

"I moved, yeah." She eyed him warily. "It's been kind of messed up. I'm living with Vicki."

"Vicki from Greendale Vicki?" Jeff asked, surprised.

Annie nodded. "We used the web portal alumni housing roommate thing. I thought she was someone named Tory and she thought I was Annie Kim."

Jeff chuckled. "So you're looking for a new place, I assume?" He faltered, hoping he hadn't stepped over a line by implying that she ought to be living with him.

She didn't seem to notice. "Actually, no. Vicki is at least as easy to live with as Abed ever was. She cleans the bathroom herself! She complains if Ileave dirty dishes out!"

"You never leave dirty dishes out, though." He smiled at her. "Or have you been doing it just to test her limits?"

"Well," Annie said with a cute shrug, "I need to have full information on what is and isn't acceptable if I'm going to live with her." She smiled back at him, and for a few seconds they were just sitting and catching up together and everything was good and normal. Then she seemed to remember their circumstances, and the warmth faded.

Jeff sensed her shifting mood. "So how did Vicki end up all the way out here?"

"Is this what we're going to do?" she asked, ignoring his question. "Just chat like a couple of old friends who bumped into each other?"

"I don't…" It was Jeff's turn to stare down at the tabletop. He bit his lip. The small talk portion of the evening was over. Still, he'd practiced this. Ever since he'd left Greendale he'd known, on some level, that this conversation was inevitable. "I let you go…" he began.

Annie took a ragged breath. "If what you're saying is," she began, her voice almost catching, "you don't want to see me, then we probably shouldn't be meeting like this."

"Hah!" Jeff shook his head and ignored the guilt he felt for making her voice crack like that. "You know there's nothing I want more."

"Do I?" She closed her eyes for a moment, then glared at him. "You left me."

"I did, yeah." He didn't want to meet her gaze, instead playing with a coffee stirrer and the foam in his latte.

"You moved across the country with no forwarding address," Annie said. "You closed out all your social media, you changed your phone number — you threw your whole life away, just so you wouldn't have to talk to me! How was that supposed to make me feel?"

"I wanted you to be able to move on without worrying about me."

"So you got really worrisome?" She tilted her head and studied him. "You don't really think you're so toxic that the nicest thing you can do for someone is leave them alone, do you?"

"Of course not. I just… I panicked. I felt like there was this slim window where I could get away, before it became a story about you going off to conquer the world and me decaying back at Greendale. I thought it would save us both a lot of pain in the long run. Save me a lot of pain, I guess."

"Save you a lot of pain," Annie repeated. "You really hurt me."

Jeff winced, but said nothing. What was there to say, besides that he was sorry? Hurting her was the last thing he'd wanted to do, but when he was being honest with himself, he had to admit that he'd known his sudden departure would cause Annie some discomfort. He hadn't expected her to just brush it off, but she was young and she'd moved on; he'd thought it was a blow she could endure and recover from with ease. She'd said she'd regret the kiss for a week and then forget about it, after all.

Annie scooted her chair back a bit and leaned forward, resting her arms on the table. "I was really looking forward to seeing you. Telling you all about the job offer, and my plans, and hearing what you thought… and you took that from me, and then you left a note saying it was for my own good."

Jeff managed a weak smile. "Well, that's your favorite, right, when someone makes decisions about you without consulting you?"

She didn't take the bait. "Are you going to go away again? Suddenly decide this is a bad situation and you need to escape? I don't want to get all excited by your —" Her face reddened slightly. "I mean, I don't want to get invested in you and then you pull up and move to South Dakota."

"Yeah, that's not going to happen. What is there in South Dakota? Chimney Rock?"

"Mount Rushmore," Annie replied. "Chimney Rock is in Nebraska."

"It doesn't surprise me at all that you know that off the top of your head. Brilliant as you are beautiful."

"Hm?" Annie blinked in surprise. "Beautiful?"

Jeff nodded, nonplussed at her reaction. "Brilliant, kind, wise, dedicated, and also the most beautiful woman I've ever met."

She smiled and looked down and bobbed her head in a manner Jeff found indescribably endearing. Then she looked him in the eye, drawing herself up, and a little bit of that aura of invulnerability she'd walked in with returned; the shift made her no less alluring. "I was really looking forward to seeing you again, and you left. You hurt me —"

"And I'm sorry." He held up his hands, whether in surrender or rebuke he wasn't sure. "I don't know how to make that right, but I'd really like to be part of your life again."

You sound like my estranged father, Imaginary Annie suddenly whispered in his ear.

He shifted in his seat uncomfortably. "In whatever capacity you're willing to have me," he added. "You're incredibly important to me and I've spent the entire time since… I was going to say since I left Colorado but it goes back before that. I've missed you a lot. I've thought about you a lot."

"Mark kind of implied that," she said. "I met Mark, did you know that?"

Jeff nodded. "And in case you needed independent verification, he said you were almost as gorgeous as I'd been claiming you were."

She gave a little half-smile. "Yeah, he seems to think you're just nuts about me."

"I don't know where he'd…" Jeff cleared his throat and tried again. "Yeah."

"I missed you, too, you know." Annie paused, staring at him. "This whole time has been so crazy… I keep thinking 'oh, there's something to tell Jeff,' or 'I wonder what Jeff will say about this,' and then I remember. Every time I got an email or a text or a call or something in the mail, I hoped it was from you. Every time! You'd think I would have learned by now. And now you're a block from my apartment, telling me you're being honest."

"I am being honest!"

"Not just that, you're being… eager. Forthcoming! Where has this Jeff Winger been all these years, with your… friendliness?" Annie looked like that last word was a bad compromise from what she wanted to say.

"Lying to you, lying to myself," Jeff said with a readiness that surprised him. This part of the conversation felt comfortably familiar — he'd had it many times before, with Imaginary Annie.

"And now you're being honest," Annie said. She looked at him; judged him. Some pressure valve inside her seemed to have been released, and she slouched a little in her chair, the ice in her eyes replaced by warmth. "And now I have to ask myself, is this the least likely thing that's happened to me since I moved here? Because it's been… zany."

"The last month has been weird for me, too," Jeff began, thinking of Russell Borchert in his MIT lair, and the Via Laser Lotus case. And his inability to even try to flirt with that one researcher…

"Oh, I'm sure. Wilmington, Delaware, intrigue capital of the Eastern Seaboard, right?" Annie asked wryly.

He saw the spark in her eyes and it made him hungry for more of her. "I did hear a number of hilarious stories about Dungeons & Dragons games," he said, "but I was thinking of why I had to go to Delaware, actually." Jeff almost said Pierce is alive but held it on his tongue; that was a big revelation to lay on her, and he wasn't 100% certain it was true, not yet. "And some other things," Jeff added, since she seemed to be expecting him to say something more.

"Whatever it is," she said, "I can top it —" She broke off as her phone buzzed, and took it out of a jacket pocket. "Crap," she said, reading it. "I forgot — I'm supposed to be meeting Vicki, to, uh…" She looked up at him and he felt himself tense slightly, recognizing the expression on her face.

She was going to ask him for something. He was going to do it, of course. This was the first step on what would no doubt be a long and rocky path to convincing her that she really could rely on him. Just helping her, being there for her however she wanted him, wouldn't be enough by itself, though. They both knew he was wrapped around Annie's little finger; hours spent debating the imaginary version of Annie that lived in his head had convinced him of that. Although, he thought with sudden disquiet, Real Annie seemed to have spent a lot more time thinking about and missing him than Imaginary Annie had led him to believe. It was possible that Imaginary Annie was wrong about other things, too. Real Annie's affection for him seemed purer than Imaginary Annie's affectionate contempt. She seemed both harder and more fragile, in different ways…

"Yeah?" He tried to hide his mounting excitement.

"You want to come with me? To meet Vicki at my apartment?" she asked, which was simultaneously the most welcome invitation Jeff had ever received in his life, and a bit of a letdown.

* * *

When Jeff didn't answer immediately, Annie began to worry she hadn't sounded casual enough. He stared at her, his expression oddly intent. Or what would have passed for oddly intent six months ago; the piercing way he looked at her seemed to be his new normal, judging from this conversation. "Of course. What's the situation?"

"I have to go do a thing. I forgot about it when I said we could meet now… it takes like an hour to get there, walking to the subway station…" Annie shook her head and tried not to be flustered. Or at least not to show it. "And I asked Vicki to come along. You know, safety in numbers…"

He looked like he wanted to ask a bunch of questions, but instead just nodded. "Can I give you two a ride over to wherever?" he offered.

"Oh! Um." She stalled, briefly at a loss for words. A month of relying on public transportation for everything made car ownership seem like a superpower. "You don't have to — actually, yeah, that'd be great." Annie rose, abandoning her decaf mostly undrunk, before he could take the offer back. "If you don't mind? It's just over in Cambridge."

"Not at all!" Jeff assured her. He dashed around the table to hold the door to the coffee shop for her. "Mi—" He coughed, then in a slightly strangled tone said "My pleasure."

Annie decided to ignore her sudden premonition of Jeff deciding to kick her and Vicki out of his car halfway to MIT, and Vicki lambasting her over relying on Jeff Winger for even two seconds. "Thanks," she said instead.

He smiled like she'd given him a present.

Out on the sidewalk Annie began leading Jeff down the block and around the corner to her apartment, when she abruptly realized that during the exit from the building, somehow without noticing she'd taken Jeff's arm and wrapped her own arm around it, like they were… what, Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart? She slid away from him, certain she'd gone red as a beet.

Jeff didn't say anything about it, although he let out a disappointed little hum, possibly without meaning to, and that was very nearly enough to get her to grab him again, or throw herself into his arms.

No, she told herself. Bad plan. She wasn't about to throw herself at him, literally or metaphorically, not after all the times he'd shot her down or denied her or fled the state rather than talk to her. He had your cell number and your email this whole time. He could have checked in with you at any point, and he decided he didn't want to. She wasn't going to let him hurt her like that again, no matter how much energy she felt crackling between them. Energy that may very well have been all in her head. Jeff was a flirt; it was what he did. Probably it was the only way he knew how to express even platonic affection towards a woman. He'd complimented her a thousand other ways in the past; him saying she was 'beautiful' was no more significant than all the times he'd called her clever or kind. Usually right before asking for a copy of her notes, or for her to do his part of a group project.

Annie cleared her throat and tried to think about other things. "You'll never guess who I got a call from yesterday," she said. "Russell Borchert. That's who we're going to see. He's at MIT now, apparently. I don't know how he knew I was here, but he wanted me to go to his lab and let him test me, or something, with his computer. You remember the computer? Raquel?"

To her disappointment, Jeff seemed unsurprised. "Scarlett," he said, hands thrust deep in his pockets as he watched his feet. "Raquel's replacement. His new computer is named Scarlett. I met him last week, actually. MIT is kind of a maze but I know where his lab is, now — I could show you, if you want?" Jeff sounded less like he was making a friendly offer and more like he was asking her to do him a favor. Again, it was hard to not just throw her arms around him because God, both of them could really use a hug.

"Absolutely," she replied. "So that's one thing. There's also…" Annie gave a little shudder, trying to think of how to articulate Pierce's bizarre video message. Better to hold off on it; they had enough on their plates. "You met him already?"

"Yeah, he called me up."

It seemed odd, to Annie. Her going to Boston was one thing. Jeff going to Boston was another thing. Vicki and Quendra going to Boston was a third thing. Russell Borchert going to Boston and calling up Jeff and calling up her (she still didn't know how he knew she was in the city) were fourth, fifth, and sixth things. "So, um, how's he doing?"

Jeff glanced at her and licked his lips unconsciously. "He's, uh, he's adjusting. He got a shave and a haircut — he looks kind of like Chris Elliott now. Friendly… I'd say he's harmless but I wouldn't want to leave you alone with him." He gave her a peculiar look, as though daring her to make something of his protectiveness.

She resisted the urge to smile reassuringly back. "Well, that's why I asked Vicki to, um, act as backup. Oh!" she lit up, remembering something else she could tell him. "You know Quendra's out here, too? She's Vicki's cousin, it turns out!"

He gave her a blank look. "Who?"

"Quendra with a Q? You remember." What she had intended as an emphatic swat on his arm became a caress despite her best intentions. "The blonde girl you tried to use to make me jealous the time I wanted to get Rich to join the study group." Annie immediately regretted framing the Great Annie-Jeff-Quendra-Rich Dust-Up of 2011 in those terms, but tried not to show it.

Jeff didn't seem to notice. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I remember her now."

"They inherited a bakery here, and it's not going real well," Annie confided, glad to have a safely impersonal topic of conversation. "Vicki filled our fridge up with chuffins that are still there even though they've got to be stale by now."

"Chuffins?" he repeated. "What's a chuffin?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. They're like muffins — cinnamon muffins — but not."

"Hmm. Chuffin. Cheese muffin?"

"No cheese."

"Chorizo muffins? No, no…"

Annie scoffed. "No meat, obviously."

"Chocolate muffin?"

"Cinnamon, not chocolate. They're crunchier —"

"Churro muffins!" Jeff said suddenly, stopping dead in his tracks.

Annie's eyes widened. "Oh my god, yes!" She reached up and gripped his shoulder, pulling him closer without quite noticing what she was doing. "Churro muffins! Chuffins!"

And then they were standing on the street, grinning at each other, wild-eyed, and Jeff's hand was sliding up her back, to the back of her neck, and then the back of her head, and then neither of them were grinning. She looked him in the eye, as he started to lean down, and she tilted her head further up and started to lean into him, and —

"Jesus Christ!" shouted Vicki from their porch.


	16. So This is an Experiment

**WED 19 AUG 2015**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2245:**

 **[Hello emoji]**

 **On my way home* today I saw the weirdest vanity plate**

 ***Not actually home but you know**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2247:**

 **Did you steal the clipping out of my office?**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2249:**

 **Hi, Annie, how was your day?**

 **What was this crazy vanity plate?**

 **[Sarcasm emoji] [hello emoji] [sarcasm emoji]**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2250:**

 **She said, dodging the question**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2251:**

 **You said you stole it out of the trophy case to remember me by**

 **So this is an experiment**

 **Like, when I texted you, were you going to be all 'who is this I don't remember any Annie?'**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2251:**

 **The weak link in your plan was trusting Britta**

 **You had to know she'd Britta it**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2251:**

 **Maybe I believe in people**

 **Maybe I look for the good in people**

 **Unlike some people who look for the bad**

 **And are basically monsters [tongue stuck out emoji]**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2252:**

 **[tongue stuck out emoji]**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2252:**

 **She said you didn't know she'd taken it**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2252:**

 **I knew**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2253:**

 **Can you pretend you don't?**

 **For Britta's self-esteem!**

 **[Heart emoji] [big eyes emoji]**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2254:**

 **That doesn't work when it's just an emoji**

 **Ugh, fine**

 **That shouldn't work when it's just an emoji**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2255:**

 **[Heart emoji][heart emoji]**

 **You're picking me up at the airport right?**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2255:**

 **Of course**

 **On Friday, right?**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2256:**

 **Yes. I emailed you my itinerary. No changes**

 **Performance review meeting tomorrow**

 **I'll text you after**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2256:**

 **You'd better!**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2257:**

 **DC has been great but I'm looking forward to being home**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2257:**

 ***Actually home?**

 **ANNIE to JEFF, 2257:**

 **[Smiling emoji]**

 **JEFF to ANNIE, 2304:**

 **We're all looking forward to seeing you, too**

* * *

Jeff drew his hand away from Annie's head and straightened up as Annie took a couple of steps back. "Vicki!" she cried, turning towards the source of the shout — a woman on the stoop of one of the houses, leaning heavily on a railing.

"Don't you 'Vicki' me!" she growled. "You ask me to do you a favor, then you're late? And I come downstairs and find you making out with Jeff Winger!"

"We were not —" "That isn't —" Jeff and Annie began to protest at the same time.

"Can it!" Vicki stomped heavily down the steps towards them. "You can do whatever you —" she began, and broke off. "Although as your friend —" she said, and stopped. Then she tried a third time: "I just want you to know, I told you so!"

"I… okay. Let's start over. You remember Jeff," Annie said desperately, gesturing towards him.

Jeff gave Vicki a tight wave and forced himself to simmer down. "Hey, Vicki."

"Eugh." Vicki glared at him like he'd done something to her. "How dare you chase her down like — she deserves — you're old and weird and not everything is about you!"

"Hey!" Annie thrust an angry finger in Vicki's direction.

"Oh, I'm on your side!" Vicki told her. "Maybe you're too far gone to see it."

"There's nothing to, to, to…" Annie sputtered. "We're friends!"

Ouch, whispered Imaginary Annie in Jeff's ear. You understand what I mean by that, right? I mean I don't want to kiss you. I might have kissed you just to be nice but really I'm just happy to see you and I got a little carried away.

Jeff tried to ignore that, too. "Okay, great," he said. "I think we can —"

"Didn't I tell you to can it?" Vicki snapped at him, before returning her attention to Annie. "What the hell are you thinking?"

Jeff recognized the change in Annie's posture as her eyes narrowed and she shifted from embarrassed supplicant to defensive combatant. If he didn't do something immediately he might have to pull her physically off Vicki, which, though appealing on multiple levels, was probably not optimal. "Annie, it's great you have someone like Vicki looking out for you," he said quickly, "I know this city is full of creeps."

"Creeps like you," Vicki muttered.

"Like this whole thing with Borchert and MIT," Jeff continued, as though Vicki hadn't spoken. "Really generous of her to go with you." His gambit to derail their trains of thought seemed to work, to the extent that Annie didn't slam-tackle Vicki, at least.

Instead Annie stood stiffly, arms folded. "Although," she said, "Jeff offered to give me a ride —"

"I'll bet."

Annie rolled her eyes. "Us a ride," she corrected. "In his car. And he knows the way to Dr. Borchert's lab, so —"

"Oh no!" Vicki threw up her hands. "I am not leaving you alone with him!"

"Vicki, I'm a grown woman —"

"And you should know better —"

It was tempting to keep quiet and hear what, exactly, Annie was going to say, but Jeff doubted his long-term prospects would be improved if he incited a fight between the roommates. "I can take you both," he offered. "You remember the Lexus. Seats three comfortably."

"Shotgun," Vicki said immediately. She shot Jeff a dark look, and leaned towards Annie. "Do you really want to be doing this?" Vicki whispered, not quietly enough for Jeff to fail to overhear.

He saw Annie glance his way, but her response was low and under her breath, too quiet for Jeff to make out.

Vicki didn't seem to like whatever Annie had to say. "No, that's not true!" she whispered.

Annie folded her arms and stepped a little closer to Vicki. Whatever she said, again, Jeff couldn't hear.

Vicki made a face. "Oh, come on! You're twisting —"

Jaw set, Annie grabbed the lapel of Vicki's coat and pulled her close, murmuring something urgently.

"Okay," Vicki said. "I'm sorry, I just… Okay." Vicki made a show of adjusting her jacket and turning to Jeff. "Sorry I called you a weird old creep. No offense intended."

Jeff felt oddly disconcerted. "None taken."

"I'm pretty sure some offense was intended," Annie declared.

"Okay, yes, God." Vicki rolled her eyes. "Some offense was intended, but I'm retracting, okay? Retracted!"

"Yeah, okay," Jeff said. He shot Annie a hopeful look, and she smiled back at him.

"Great. Well." Vicki stared at Jeff a moment. "You've got a car, let's go then."

This was good, Jeff told himself. Annie was willing to ride in his car. She objected to Vicki trying to stop her from seeing him — because other people making decisions for her was her favorite thing, right? Still, these were positive signs. It was more than he deserved.

* * *

Superficially MIT resembled Greendale, in that they both consisted mainly of buildings and spaces between buildings. Jeff seemed to know where he was going, to Annie's considerable relief; wandering lost across the campus with Jeff or Vicki would have been fine (though which she'd prefer was obvious, really, either would've been fine), but wandering lost with Jeff and Vicki was a nightmare scenario she'd have given anything to escape.

Vicki took her role as more-or-less self-appointed chaperone seriously. As they exited Jeff's parked car, she loudly whispered, "Princess, listen, I know you think everything's sunshine and rose petals, but—"

"Vicki!" Annie hissed. "I told you! I am perfectly capable of handling myself when it comes to Jeff Winger!"

"Are you sure? Because it sure looked like you two were about to climb Makeout Mountain back at the apartment!" Vicki made a face. "If that's what you want to do, great, have at it, climb him like a tree, but you asked me to come out with you tonight specifically to help you fend off creepy guys—"

Annie gasped in outrage. "He's not creepy! He's Jeff!"

Several yards away Jeff cleared his throat, in a you-aren't-being-as-quiet-as-you-probably-think kind of way.

Vicki shot him a sour glance. "He's creepy," she whispered to Annie. "Trust me. He's like forty."

"I can handle him," Annie insisted, quietly. "I've known him for years, remember."

"Oh, I know. Who have you been telling Jeff stories to for the last month?" Vicki pointed to herself. "Just think about what you're doing, okay?"

Vicki's insistence was enough to give Annie pause. She'd thought of Vicki as part of that group of people who either believed she and Jeff had been a couple (Quendra, Vicki), or that Jeff was crazy about her (Britta, Mark, Pierce (kind of)). As much as she hated to admit that Vicki's hectoring would have any effect on her, finding out that she was actually on Team Jeb Is A Douche, with Frankie and Quendra, made Annie wonder whether she'd been wrong to think, for even a second, that kissing Jeff was something she should be doing.

Since Vicki had joined them, of course, Jeff had said little on his own behalf. That wasn't necessarily a sign of his being flighty, though. Vicki hadsort of bit his head off.

Annie sighed. Things were never easy.

Except navigating MIT, it turned out. Armed with the GPS on her phone and Jeff's experience, they were able to reach the Trapezoid Building without difficulty, despite the growing darkness.

The part where Jeff explained that they needed to get into one of the nearby buildings and then through an underground tunnel was met with skepticism. Still, unlocked door, stairs, tunnel, and there they were, at an elevator that promised Borchert at its other end. Jeff pressed the button, and while they waited for the elevator, Annie checked the time. Five past eight.

"So he's expecting us?" Jeff asked, in the same bland tone he'd been using since Vicki had badmouthed him.

"Yeah. We're a little early." She shrugged with similar exaggerated casualness. "I'm sure it's fine."

"If he tries anything…" Vicki warned. She took out her own phone. "I'm going to enter 911 now, so I only need to hit send if something happens."

"It'll be fine," Annie said, with a confidence she didn't really feel. "Jeff met him already, actually."

"I did, yeah," Jeff said.

"Hmm, why don't I feel any safer?" Vicki asked no one in particular. "Is it because Jeff Winger is a douchebag who'll say anything and whose words and promises mean nothing? I think it might be."

Jeff exhaled heavily.

Annie made a face, and took out her phone.

 **ANNIE to VICKI, 2006:**

 **That was over the line! I said knock it off!**

 **Apologize to Jeff!**

 **[Angry emoji] [angry emoji] [fist emoji]**

Vicki glanced at the text, then at Annie, who scowled as she pointed meaningfully at Vicki's phone.

Vicki read the text again. "Fine," she said sourly. "Sorry, Jeff."

Just then the elevator dinged, and the door opened. Jeff started to enter it, then stopped, when he saw that the oddly tiny elevator wasn't unoccupied. A woman with a gray plastic cart. Out of the corner of her eye, Annie saw Jeff stir. He knew her, from…?

"Hey, you!" the woman cried, smiling at Jeff. "Jeff Winger!"

Jeff looked slightly pained.

She seemed awfully happy to see him, Annie couldn't help noticing. In the half-second before anyone else spoke, she tried to determine the most likely explanation. Jeff had been here once before. He'd met her then; clearly he'd made quite an impression. Probably she'd given him directions and he'd thanked her by buying her a drink and then he'd given her a lift back to her place and she'd invited him in and… that was Jeff Winger, right? Once upon a time he hadn't been subtle about his romantic conquests (she tried not to think of the box of underwear but it was like not thinking of a pink elephant). Last week, if everything he'd said was true, he'd thought she was hundreds of miles away, and besides it's not like her proximity had kept him from sleeping with women like… well, Britta, sophomore year…

She tried to think of a more recent example, and came up blank, but before she could process that any further Jeff spoke.

"Hi, uh… Linda, right?" he said.

"You were supposed to email me," Linda said, a little saucily, which Annie figured supported the casual-sex supposition. So probably this was one of Jeff's lovers.

"Well, that's your position," Jeff replied, which would have sounded like a curt dismissal if he hadn't been smiling when he said it. He glanced at Vicki, who was glaring at Linda in what Annie supposed was a sign of solidarity with her, and then at Annie herself. His right eyebrow twitched as their eyes met, which, if Jeff was trying to send Annie a nonverbal signal, he should have picked something less ambiguous.

"Mmm-hmm." Linda seemed to have barely seen Annie and Vicki. Also she wasn't moving out of the elevator, and between her and the cart there was no room for them to enter.

"This is Annie Edison," Jeff said, gesturing towards her with an awkward tang in his voice. "She's… she was, uh, in the bunker with us."

"Hello," Annie said gamely.

"Oh yeah?" Linda turned towards Annie, seeming to see her for the first time. "You're visiting from Colorado, then?"

"I'm Vicki," interjected Vicki. No one acknowledged her.

"I live here, actually," Annie said. "I mean, not here. Over in Somerville."

"Oh!" Linda seemed to connect some dots in her head. "Are you two —"

"We're friends!" Jeff said quickly. He shot Annie a quick, nervous glance.

Vicki scoffed, but again, no one acknowledged her.

Well, Annie thought, that answered that. Jeff had just fallen all over himself to assure this woman that Annie was no kind of competition. Which all but confirmed that she was a past and/or future lover, and that Jeff didn't put Annie in the same category. He just wanted to be Annie's friend, overeagerness notwithstanding, same as always. Because he loved her (like he loved Shirley and Abed and Troy) and he'd missed her, and anything else was either her reading into things or else his natural flirtatiousness. His charm. His stupid Jeff Winger-itude…

There was an awkward silence that Annie broke when she noticed it. "I have an appointment with Dr. Borchert, actually. Jeff offered to show me the way."

"Oh, sure," said Linda. "Hold on — excuse me?" She gave her cart a shove so it rolled out of the elevator and came to rest against the far wall. "I was just dropping that back off. Going up? We'll have to take two trips, it's a pretty small elevator." She gestured to the cramped space in which she stood, which seemed to have been designed just barely large enough to hold one person and a cart.

"You go, Jeff," Vicki said, before anyone else could respond. "Me and Annie will take the next one."

Jeff shot Annie a pleading look (which could have meant anything) but when he saw her expression, he nodded. As the elevator closed with him and Linda inside, Vicki turned to Annie. "Like I was going to leave you two alone again," she said.

"What?" Annie tried to keep up a poker face. "I don't know what you mean."

"Sure you don't." Vicki gave Annie a pat on the back, either as reassurance or a show of strength. "You said 'Vicki, I'm going to be going to this place with a creepy guy, I need you to run interference —' "

"That's not what I —"

"That's what you basically said. And, I'm sorry, but it's true: Jeff Winger is the king of the creepers."

"He's — he's not —" Annie sputtered. "And it's none of your business! If I wanted to, to, to screw Jeff Winger, all casual-sex style, like people do —which I don't! But if I did — I can!"

Vicki shot her a doubtful look. "You want to, though? Come on. It's not like you didn't have plenty of opportunity back at Greendale. You've told me a dozen different Jeff Winger stories since you moved in, and the moral of every single one was Jeff Winger is crazy damaged goods, hands off like he was plutonium. And, you know, this is why people thought you were a couple, stuff like this!"

"Listen, I don't try to get between you and Todd!" Annie pointed out.

"Okay, whoa. Control Z." Vicki held up her hands as if calling a time-out. "First off, that's a completely different situation. Secondly… it's just completely different."

"Yeah, it is," agreed Annie, "because I'm not in a relationship already, for one thing —"

"Neil and I are broken up!" Vicki protested. "Well. We will be, next time we talk. I mean, we are. He basically knows. I just need to like, formally break it to him —"

"So you're in no position to be giving me any kind of relationship advice, okay?" Annie snapped.

"You wanted me to come along. I'm just looking out for you!"

"Well, Jeff is — it's different, okay?" Annie strained not to think about Jeff and the Linda woman, or Jeff's box of underwear, or the way he'd treated Britta, or the way he'd fallen apart last year when she stopped propping him up. "He's not a creep," she said, hoping she sounded more certain than she felt.

"Hmmph." Vicki sounded unconvinced. She jabbed the elevator button a few times. "If you say so."


End file.
